Case 1:22-cv-01564-BAH Document 17 Filed 02/07/23 Page 19 of 34
| | B. | The Office Correctly Refused Plaintiff’s Application to Register the Work |
| | | 1. | The History and Language of the Act Supports the Office’s Conclusion that Only Human Authorship Qualifies for Copyright Protection |
Contrary to Plaintiff’s argument, there is no support in the Act for his assertion that copyright extends to works created solely by machines. For example, Plaintiff is mistaken that because the statutory phrase “works of authorship” is undefined, the Act permits AI-generated works to be registered. See Dkt. 16 at 7–9. Rather, the human authorship requirement is a longstanding requirement of copyright law. The 1909 Copyright Act explicitly provided that only a “person” could “secure copyright for his work.” Act of Mar. 4, 1909, c. 320, §§ 9, 10, 35 Stat. 1075, 1077. In enacting the 1976 Act, Congress did not intend to change the standards for copyright authorship. See H.R. Rep. No. 94-1476, at 51 (1976) (noting that Congress intended to incorporate the “original work of authorship” standard under the 1909 Act).
Plaintiff misconstrues other provisions of the Act when citing them in support of his position. See Dkt. 16 at 7–9. He claims that the Act “explicitly accommodates non-human authors” by allowing copyright registration for anonymous works, pseudonymous works, or works made for hire. Id. at 8 n.3, n.4. The opposite is true; the Act assumes that authors are human. But Congress created “special provisions” to address those circumstances where a work’s term cannot be computed by using an author’s life because the human author is not identified. See H.R. Rep. No. 94-1476, at 137. For anonymous and pseudonymous works,[1] the Act addresses these types of works by providing a fixed length of protection. See 17 U.S.C. § 302(a)–(c). However, if the author’s identity is revealed in the registration record before the
- ↑ Plaintiff’s arguments regarding works made for hire are addressed separately below in Section V.C.
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