Key points
- The US Supreme Court denied certiorari in Thaler v. Perlmutter on 2 March 2026, leaving the D.C. Circuit human-authorship ruling intact.
- The D.C. Circuit ruling stands: US copyright law requires a human author; an AI system cannot hold authorship.
- The ruling is limited to works with no asserted human authorship; human contributions to AI-assisted works are assessed case by case.
Summary
On 2 March 2026, the US Supreme Court denied certiorari in Thaler v. Perlmutter (case 23-5233), allowing the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals opinion of 18 March 2025 to stand as the binding US authority on AI authorship. The ruling settles, for the current period, the question of whether an AI system can hold copyright: it cannot. Works with no asserted human authorship are not copyrightable in the US. Human contributions to AI-assisted work remain assessed on a case-by-case basis. For animation educators, the ruling is the authoritative reference for every discussion of copyright in AI-assisted student work.
Related items
- Copyright and Artificial Intelligence, Part 2: Copyrightability
- US Copyright Office Report on Copyright and AI, Part 3: Generative AI Training
- 98th Academy Awards Rules: AI and Human Authorship
Source
Source: US Supreme Court / SCOTUSblog ↗ (Court Ruling)
Cite this item
US Supreme Court / SCOTUSblog (2026). ‘Thaler v. Perlmutter: Supreme Court denies certiorari, human-authorship requirement upheld’, US Supreme Court / SCOTUSblog. Available at: https://www.scotusblog.com/cases/thaler-v-perlmutter/
Your reference manager can also read this page directly: with the Zotero (or Mendeley) browser connector installed, save it straight to your library. Whole-collection exports: RIS, BibTeX, CSL-JSON.