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HC issues notice on plea by US researcher seeking copyright for AI-generated artwork
Delhi high court orders the Copyright Office to decide on Dr. Stephen Thaler's AI-generated artwork copyright application within eight weeks.
New Delhi: The Delhi high court, in a first on Thursday, directed the Copyright Office to decide within eight weeks an application filed by American AI researcher Dr Stephen Thaler seeking copyright registration for his artwork, generated by an artificial intelligence (AI) system he developed.
The artistic work, titled “A Recent Entrance to Paradise”, was generated by Thaler using his AI system DABUS (Device for the Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Sentience).
Thaler has filed multiple applications across jurisdictions, including the United Kingdom, New Zealand and the United States, seeking recognition of his AI system as an inventor or author. In March, the US Supreme Court declined to entertain his petition challenging decisions of federal authorities and courts refusing copyright registration for the same artistic work.
The present application marks Dr Thaler’s first legal action in India concerning copyright protection for AI-generated work.
A bench of justice Tushar Rao Gedela passed the order after the lawyer for the Registrar of Copyright submitted that it had now scheduled a hearing in the copyright application for April 27.
“In view of the aforesaid development, scheduling the date of hearing, it is noted that the subject application seeking copyright of the artistic work submitted in 2022 and having regards to the fact that no hearing was issued to the petitioner, it would be appropriate to request the Registrar of Copyright to conduct the hearing and conclude the same in eight weeks from the date of hearing,” the court said in its order.
The order was passed in Thaler’s plea seeking a direction to the Copyright Office to expeditiously hear and decide his application filed in 2022, for copyright registration of the artistic work.
Thaler sought copyright in India for his work because it constitutes a computer-generated work under the Copyright Act, 1957, which states that the author of a computer-generated work is the person who causes the work to be created.
In his petition, argued by advocates Ankit Sahni and Chirag Ahluwalia, Thaler contended that his application for copyright registration of the artistic work has remained pending before the Copyright Office for nearly four years without any decision.
He submitted that despite the issuance of a notice and the passage of two years since then, the office has neither scheduled a fresh hearing nor passed any order on the application. The petition stated that the continued pendency was causing serious prejudice to his artwork and raises important questions in the evolving field of artificial intelligence and intellectual property law.
