Silly AI, copyrights are for humans
Also: The NYPD can't shake a record class action settlement over its “kettling” tactics used to trap civil rights protesters.
For a work to be copyrighted, it must have been created by a human, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals said in a landmark AI ruling this week.
Three judges in a unanimous opinion laid the precedent for determining who (or what) is the rightful author of work created solely by artificial intelligence, Megan Butler reports.
In 2019, computer scientist Stephen Thaler filed a copyright application for a picture created with “Creativity Machine,” a generative AI product Thaler made. The application, which listed the software as the picture’s sole author, was denied — rightfully so, the appeals court ruled, since the 1976 Copyright Act “requires all work to be authored in the first instance by a human being.”
To be clear, the human authorship requirement doesn’t prohibit copyrighting work made by or with the help of AI, the judges said. The court simply didn’t have to get into Thaler’s claim that he’s the author of “A Recent Entrance to Paradise” because he built the AI behind it.
“Those line-drawing disagreements over how much artificial intelligence contributed to a particular human author’s work are neither here nor there in this case,” U.S. Circuit Judge Patricia A. Millett wrote for the panel.
What’s next? You already know it’s more Courthouse News.
Here’s what else happened in court this week:
The NYPD failed to overturn a record class action settlement over the force’s “kettling” tactics used to trap civil rights protesters. [Josh Russell]
Clean energy: A federal judge temporarily blocked Trump’s EPA from suddenly canceling three multibillion-dollar clean energy grants. [Ryan Knappenberger]
Verdict: Jurors convicted two purported members of the Russian mob on all charges related to the 2022 assassination attempt on Iranian dissident journalist Masih Alinejad. [Erik Uebelacker]
Vote here: New York’s highest court blocked a 2021 law passed by the New York City Council that authorized noncitizens in the U.S. legally to vote in local elections. [Josh Russell]
Resistance: As New Yorker Mahmoud Khalil fights the Trump administrations efforts to deport him or anyone else for protesting against the Israeli government’s bombing campaign in the Gaza Strip, a group of pro-Palestinian UCLA students and faculty accuses the school of standing by while counterprotesters attacked their campus encampment in the middle of the night. [Erik Uebelacker, Edvard Pettersson]
Top 8: What you’ve been reading
‘It’s night and day’: Why some NYC commuters say they’re coming around to congestion pricing
Ninth Circuit dismisses sanctions against Alan Dershowitz for Kari Lake election suit
Texas Senate passes bill requiring Ten Commandments in schools
Federal judge blocks EPA from taking back billions in clean energy grants
Senate Judiciary chairman says panel ‘taking action’ after judge blocks Trump deportation order
Full 11th Circuit upholds Florida age limit for gun buys, rejecting NRA challenge
On the stand: At a civil trial in Los Angeles, the woman suing rapper Soulja Boy on sexual assault claims gave harrowing testimony describing months of abuse. [Hillel Aron]
Please stand up: Joseph Strange, a former employee of Eminem, faces criminal charges over the illegal sale of the rap icon’s unreleased music. [Joe Harris]
Death penalty: A divided Supreme Court allowed Louisiana to move forward with its first nitrogen gas execution, refusing to block the planned death of Jessie Hoffman. A Buddhist, Hoffman said the process violates his rights by interfering with his meditative breathing as he dies. [Kelsey Reichmann]
A federal judge dismissed an environmentalist group’s third lawsuit against the USDA seeking to block Colorado prairie dog kills: “Here, the third time is not a charm,” U.S. Judge Regina Rodriguez wrote. [Amanda Pampuro]
Rulings on our radar 📡
» Western District of Washington: The court trimmed three counts from an antitrust lawsuit against Amazon.
» Southern District of Ohio: A landscaping company lost summary judgment in its negligence dispute with a homeowner’s insurer, which filed suit after the company burned yard waste on the property and the fire spread to and damaged the house.
» Northern District of New York: A Greek Orthodox mother lost her free exercise and due process lawsuit against an upstate New York school that allowed her seventh-grade daughter to use her chosen name and pronouns without the mom’s knowledge.