AI As An Author - "Creativity Machine" Creator Asks Supreme Court To Reconsider Authorship Requirements

On October 9, 2025, Dr. Stephen Thaler and team submitted a petition for writ of certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court asking "[w]hether works outputted by an AI system without a direct, traditional authorial contribution by a natural person can be copyrighted." This petition follows a series of denials - first by the Copyright Office, then by the D.C. District Court, and most recently by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals - which found that a purely artificial intelligence ("AI") generated work cannot receive copyright protection, since the AI did not qualify for "traditional human authorship." If the petition is granted, it could have significant implications for copyright protection for AI-generated works.