The decision, issued by Judge Beryl Howell, stemmed from computer scientist Stephen Thaler’s efforts to copyright an image he said was created by an AI model, identified as Creativity Machine. Thaler claimed that as the owner of Creativity Machine, he was entitled to the copyright. The Copyright Office rejected that application on the grounds that human authorship is necessary to secure a copyright, prompting Thaler to sue.
Howell ultimately upheld the Copyright Office’s decision, citing long-standing precedent about human authorship. “The act of human creation — and how to best encourage human individuals to engage in that creation, and thereby promote science and the useful arts — was thus central to American copyright from its very inception,” Howell wrote. “Non-human actors need no incentivization with the promise of exclusive rights under United States law, and copyright was therefore not designed to reach them.”
well, if you really want to get specific, it’s because large corporations with a vested interest in maintaining and consolidating IP rights for as long as possible while neglecting small artists and individuals were the ones in charge of writing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and then the US strong-armed most of the rest of the world into adopting most or all of it via compliance by means of a great many treaties, trade deals, etc. in the wake of 9/11 and the expanding militarization during the “War on Terror” at the time. it was pretty underhanded.
Or, in other words: capitalism screwed the little people, and we’re still paying the price.