AIster · The agentic age · Laws & rulings
Supreme Court declines to hear the AI authorship case
US law still says a work made by AI alone cannot be copyrighted
Key facts
- Date
- 2 Mar 2026
- Era
- The agentic age
- Interest
- Laws & rulings
- Threads
- Model wars
- Artwork
- “A Recent Entrance to Paradise”
- Refused by Copyright Office
- 12 Aug 2019
- DC Circuit ruling
- 18 Mar 2025
- Supreme Court declined
- 2 Mar 2026
The US Supreme Court declined to hear Thaler v. Perlmutter, Stephen Thaler's bid to register an image made by his Creativity Machine system with the AI listed as sole author. That left in place the DC Circuit's March 2025 ruling that the Copyright Act requires a human author. The case did not decide the status of works made with meaningful human input.
Sources
- Supreme Court of the United States, Docket for 25-449: Stephen Thaler v. Shira Perlmutter, Register of Copyrights, 2026-03-02
- National Constitution Center, Supreme Court denies artificial intelligence authorship claim for artwork copyright, 2026-03-11