Hollywood Beware: You Can't Copyright AI-Created Art

The story of the year is artificial intelligence. For the first time ever, many humans came face to face with the reality that their jobs could go away in an instant.

In Hollywood, actors, writers, and directors all had this rush to reality. The DGA got AI language in their contract and the WGA and SAG-AFTRA are still striking as of writing this story.

But in a new legal case, a judge has recently ruled that AI-created art cannot be copyrighted, which might give Hollywood pause before they replace creatives with algorithms.

A man named Stephen Thaler challenged the government, which has been refusing to copyright works made by AI.

U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell, who presided over the case, said copyright law has “never stretched so far” to “protect works generated by new forms of technology operating absent any guiding human hand.” He also stressed that “Human authorship is a bedrock requirement.”

In even more strict words, Howell doubled down on humans having to be involved with the creation of anything we want to be copyrighted.

He wrote, “In the absence of any human involvement in the creation of the work, the clear and straightforward answer is the one given by the Register: No.”

This is just one ruling, but it sets a precedent that I think will be a bar at which AI products are measured. The real worry is how Hollywood reacts to this and if they can find any loopholes to rulings like these. But I don't expect them to try to make movies with images they cannot own or scripts someone else could take as well.

We'll keep an eye on how this develops.

Let us know what you think in the comments.