India Rejects AI Authorship in DABUS Copyright Case, Sparking Debate on AI-Generated Artwork Protection

Is AI creator of art that's AI-generated?

India's Copyright Office rejected an AI artwork's registration, citing legal personhood issues. Current laws prioritise human creativity, failing to recognise AI's role. New legislation is needed to address AI's growing influence in creative fields. This will require redefining ownership and personality for copyright relevance. Such changes will promote responsible innovation and clarify existing claims. On Monday, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade's Copyright Office rejected an application seeking to register an artwork created by the AI system DABUS (Device for the Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Sentience) with DABUS as its 'author'. The decision rested on non-recognition of AI as a 'natural person' or 'juristic person under law'. IP rights protection to AI-generated content requires fresh legislation. Most global legal systems are similarly placed because of their emphasis on human individuality and creativity as qualifiers for holding a copyright. AI is seen to fail on both counts. The art may be original, but its creator enjoys no legal protection. Prompting an AI system isn't deemed to be art since it doesn't involve any real creative expression. But if significant human intervention were involved in a piece of creativity - say, through editing - the question of not assigning IP protection becomes trickier. Copyright law, once amended to cater to the new reality, must be able to discern human and AI influence in any creative pursuit, and be able to decide when protection is due. Intent of law, as it stands today, is to reward human creativity. Lowering the bar would lead to a tide of cheap - in all its senses - machine-generated content. But content is becoming more autonomous anyway. Offering it no protection will affect technological innovation. The solution would probably lie somewhere in the middle of these two extreme positions. 'Ownership' and 'personality' redefined to keep the copyright law relevant. This would be a good opportunity for India to make a holistic appraisal of its rather rickety IPR regime. Legislation should provide implementation clarity even outside AI, where most suits are contested. Protection will derive from AI process transparency that upholds existing copyright claims, while promoting responsible tech innovation. Fair- use standards must be imposed for training AI, and treatment of human-AI collab has to be demarcated in any legislative change India embarks upon.

Stephen Thaler Says India Got DABUS Copyright Half Right

Stephen L Thaler says the Indian Copyright Office got half of it right. It was correct to hold that his AI system's artwork can be protected. It was wrong to record him as its author. "Attributing authorship to me simply because I built the machine or supplied baseline historical inputs is a legal fiction that mischaracterizes the modern reality of artificial intelligence," he told MediaNama. MediaNama reported on September 1 that the Copyright Office refused to enter DABUS as the author of A Recent Entrance to Paradise. It held that the work itself met the originality requirement under Section 13 of the Copyright Act, 1957. Thaler was recorded as the person who caused it to be created. He calls the outcome "a pivotal partial recognition, rather than a flat refusal." Where he says India got it right Thaler rates the Indian position well above the American one. The comparison is the substance of his answer. "By holding that the work satisfies the statutory threshold of originality, India has advanced far beyond the United States Copyright Office," he said. The US, in his account, "has repeatedly used a lack of human authorship as a blunt instrument to deny copyright protection to the work entirely." He is more specific about why India's framework allowed a different result. The Registrar, he said, "relied heavily on statutory provisions that explicitly contemplate computer-generated works and attribute authorship to the person who causes the work to be created." That is Section 2(d)(vi), which has no direct American equivalent. "This creates a unique legal bridge that other jurisdictions lack, even if the current administrative interpretation remains overly restrictive." That framing is his, and it is worth noting where it is contested. The US Copyright Office has registered works containing AI-generated material where the human contribution was sufficient. Its position is that AI-generated elements are unprotectable, not that a work touched by AI is. Thaler's account of a blanket denial describes his own case, not the whole American position. Where he disagrees The order held that "autonomy in execution is not synonymous with conception of a work." Thaler rejects that outright. "This distinction stems from a misunderstanding of how the Device for the Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Sentience (DABUS) functions," he said. "DABUS did not merely 'execute' a mechanical prompt or a human-directed command." His description of the system is that it "forms independent associations, cross-analyzes its own data, and stabilizes ideas entirely through its internal neural architecture without real-time human intervention. Therefore, DABUS conceived the work." That claim has gone to offices in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and the European Patent Office. None has accepted it. No adjudicating body has independently tested it. It remains the load-bearing element of his entire litigation strategy. The RAGHAV inconsistency A 2020 registration listing the AI tool RAGHAV as a co-author of the artwork Suryast remains on the Indian register. MediaNama independently verified that it still stands. Thaler intends to use it. The registration "highlights a clear and undeniable inconsistency within the Indian Copyright Office's administrative history," he said. An AI tool was recognised under the same statutory framework, which he says "exposes the arbitrary nature of administrative line-drawing." It "will certainly form a core component of any subsequent legal analysis and review." Four years, and a court order to decide The application was filed in 2022 and decided only after Thaler went to the Delhi High Court. Justice Tushar Rao Gedela directed the Registrar to conclude the proceedings on April 9, 2026. Thaler calls the delay "an unfortunate symptom of bureaucratic inertia confronting paradigm-shifting technology." It "remained in limbo because administrative bodies preferred avoidance over tackling tough legal questions." Having to petition a High Court "simply to compel the Copyright Office to do its job was a frustrating but necessary step." What happens next Thaler is not committing to an appeal. "The final decision to appeal is a question I am deferring to my counsel." He disclosed one element of the order that has not otherwise been reported. "The Registrar explicitly stated that extending authorship to autonomous AI systems is a matter for Parliament, rather than administrative reinterpretation." MediaNama has not been able to obtain a copy of the order and cannot independently confirm that passage. Thaler's answer to it is a judicial one. "The role of the courts is to interpret the law in light of modern scientific facts," he said, adding that he will "continue to work with my legal team to challenge these decisions judicially." No further filings are planned in India. The focus shifts to "evaluating this specific administrative refusal through the appropriate channels." What is still unanswered The question MediaNama raised on September 1 remains open. Thaler's response does not touch on it. Section 2(d)(vi) asks who "causes the work to be created." The order treats Thaler as that person because he built and ran the system. It does not say whether typing a prompt into a commercial tool meets the same threshold. That distinction governs the copyright status of a very large volume of Indian commercial output. It is also what DPIIT said Part II of its working paper would address. MediaNama could not find a published Part II. The Copyright Office and DPIIT have not responded to MediaNama's questions at the time of publication.