The Supreme Court closed the easiest question in AI copyright law in March 2026. The harder questions remain entirely open.
On or around March 5, 2026, the Supreme Court denied certiorari in *Thaler v. Perlmutter*, leaving intact the D.C. Circuit Court’s ruling that “author” under the Copyright Act requires a human being. AI systems cannot be named as authors or hold copyright. Multiple independent legal publications confirmed the cert denial, including Finnegan, Knobbe Martens, and Reed Smith.
The ruling specifically addressed works created with no human input whatsoever, the Thaler case involved AI-generated art where the plaintiff argued the AI system itself should hold the copyright. The Court’s decision not to disturb the D.C. Circuit’s holding closes that argument under existing law.
What the ruling does not resolve is the more common scenario: AI-assisted work, where a human uses AI tools to create something and claims copyright in the result. The ruling leaves open what level of human creative contribution is required for AI-assisted output to qualify for copyright protection, a question that will generate continued litigation and likely require further Copyright Office guidance before the standard is clear. Per Reed Smith: “The Supreme Court’s decision not to hear this case leaves the Copyright Office’s ‘human authorship’ policy firmly in place. AI systems are not authors.”
For legal teams advising on AI-generated content: the autonomous AI authorship question is settled against such claims under current US law. The human-involvement threshold question is not settled, and is the active frontier of AI copyright litigation.
This ruling is referenced as background in TJS’s US vs. UK copyright comparison and the White House AI framework’s contested copyright position. The Thaler cert denial confirms the human authorship requirement as settled US law as of March 2026.