On January 31, 2025, the U.S. Copyright Office issued examination guidelines related to registration of works either assisted or generated by artificial intelligence tools. This blog discussed these guidelines in an earlier post. While there has been much angst as to the guidelines’ impact on creative endeavors involving AI-assisted works, it appears there are some works – assisted by artificial intelligence tools – have started to get registered by the Copyright Office since those guidelines were first issued.
As a recap, the guidelines enunciated the Copyright Office’s new policy for refusing registration to a work that was entirely generated by AI or where the human author could not satisfy the requirement of “selection, arrangement, and coordination” of the AI-generated aspect of the work.
However, on January 30, 2025, the Copyright Office registered the work “A Single Piece of American Cheese,” a 2-D artwork created, in part, by an AI machine, with an effective registration date of August 5, 2024. The author/claimant is Invoke AI, an AI image generation company based in New York. As a side note, the company is the author because of the work-for-hire doctrine under 17 U.S.C. 201(b), as an employee-generated work. The Copyright Office’s rationale was that there was a sufficient amount of “selection, coordination and arrangement of material generated by artificial intelligence,” as noted in the Basis of Claim section of the registration certificate. Also, certain 2-D artwork were specifically disclaimed by Invoke as part of the copyright claim.
The registration of “A Single Piece of American Cheese” is consistent with the guidelines, and although it was originally refused registration, according to reporting by Katelyn Chedraoui of CNet, Invoke’s CEO, Kent Keirsey, requested reconsideration (first appeal) the decision. He submitted a video of the creation process, which details how he started with the prompt “fractured glass, faces in the facets, surreal pattern of glazed brushstrokes, spaghetti noodle hair,” and continued to refine and edit the work until the final form. This process was enough for the requisite selection, arrangement, and coordination needed for human authorship, and hence, registration.
Some takeaways:
- AI-assisted creative works can be registered for a copyright if there is the requisite amount of selection, arrangement, and coordination by a human in the generation of work;
- Merely requesting a prompt is not enough human authorship, but continual editing and changes by a human may be enough for registration;
- The legal standard of selection, arrangement, and coordination is subjective, and heavily based on law and factual circumstances surrounding the creation of the work.
While exciting, AI can be a source of frustration as new works seek legal protection under the current intellectual property regimes in the United States. Some aspects may require the assistance of qualified legal counsel, so if there are any questions, please feel free to contact Yonaxis I.P. Law Group.