The U.S. Copyright Office has spent years drawing a line. AI-generated content, it has argued, lacks the human authorship copyright law requires. Ankit Sahni just filed a lawsuit asking a federal court to decide whether that line was drawn in the right place.
Sahni, operating through his company Suryast U.S. Enterprises LLC, filed the complaint in May 2026 in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. The work at issue is “Suryast”, a composite of a sunset photograph Sahni took himself and Vincent van Gogh’s *The Starry Night*, processed through an AI application called RAGHAV. The USCO rejected his registration application, citing “not enough human involvement” in the output. After a second request for reconsideration, the USCO Review Board issued a final rejection on December 11, 2023.
Sahni went to court.
The legal theory matters. According to reports about the complaint, Sahni argues that his selection of the base photograph, his layout decisions, and his configuration of the RAGHAV app established baseline creative elements qualifying for copyright protection. That’s not a claim that the AI did nothing. It’s a claim that what the human did was enough. The USCO has said it wasn’t. A federal court will now decide who’s right.
Why this matters
The USCO’s human authorship standard has never been tested in federal litigation at this stage. Prior challenges, including the Thaler v. Vidal line of cases – involved fully autonomous AI output with no human creative direction. Sahni’s case is different. He’s arguing that AI-assisted creative work, where a human made specific artistic choices before and during the AI process, should clear the authorship bar. If a court agrees, the implications reach every designer, illustrator, and content team using generative AI tools as part of a deliberate creative workflow.
The case arrives alongside the USCO’s own evolving posture on AI-generated content. Register of Copyrights Shira Perlmutter disclosed in May 12 Senate testimony, covered in a related brief, that the Office has registered over 7,000 claims containing disclaimed AI-generated elements. Those registrations protect the human-authored portions. What Sahni is disputing is where the line sits when AI and human authorship are woven together, not disclosed separately.
The real question is whether federal courts will defer to the USCO’s administrative judgment or impose a standard of their own. Courts have historically given agencies significant latitude on copyright registration decisions. But the Central District of California is also the jurisdiction where several major AI copyright cases have been filed. The judges there are not unfamiliar with the policy stakes.
Unanswered Questions
- What level of human creative direction, input selection, style configuration, layout, satisfies the USCO's authorship threshold?
- Will the Central District court defer to the USCO's administrative standard or impose its own?
- Does the Sahni theory extend to other AI-assisted workflows, or is RAGHAV's specific processing model unique?
What to watch
No court docket number is publicly confirmed at time of publication. Watch for the USCO’s response filing, which will signal how aggressively the Office intends to defend its human authorship standard in litigation. A motion to dismiss on standing grounds is possible. If the case survives early motions, it will force the court to define what level of human creative decision-making qualifies for protection, a definition the USCO has been careful not to codify.
Don’t expect a quick resolution. Copyright litigation in the Central District moves slowly. But the Sahni case is now on the federal docket, and every AI-assisted creator should track it. The USCO’s administrative standard is one district court ruling away from being either validated or overturned.