AI-generated images still can't be copyrighted as US Supreme Court declines to hear case

AI-generated images still can’t be copyrighted as US Supreme Court declines to hear case | PC Gamer Skip to main content Open menu Close main menu PC Gamer THE GLOBAL AUTHORITY ON PC GAMES US Edition UK US Canada Australia Subscribe Sign in View Profile Sign out Search Search PC Gamer Games Hardware News Reviews Guides Video Forum More PC Gaming Show PC Gamer Clips Software Codes Coupons Movies & TV Magazine Newsletter Affiliate links Meet the team Community guidelines About PC Gamer PC Gamer Magazine SubscriptionWhy subscribe?Subscribe to the world’s #1 PC gaming magTry a single issue or save on a subscriptionIssues delivered straight to your door or device From$1Subscribe now Don’t miss these Gaming Industry An AI-generated review of Resident Evil Requiem written by a fake ‘iGaming and sports betting analyst’ briefly hit Metacritic AI Todd Howard says AI’s ‘not a fad’ but ‘we’re not using it to generate anything… that handcrafted human intention, is what makes things special, and that’s where we want to be’ AI DeepSeek has reportedly denied Nvidia and AMD early access to its new V4 AI model, giving Huawei and other Chinese chipmakers a head start World of Warcraft World of Warcraft: Midnight’s lead composer feels ‘very lucky and happy that we’re not using generative AI’ AI A plague of AI-generated Homer Simpson cover songs is reportedly swamping a popular music file sharing network with the big yellow fella’s dulcet tones AI Anthropic ditches its defining safety promise to pause dangerous AI development because it’s basically pointless when everybody else is ‘blazing ahead’ AI Microsoft uses plagiarized AI slop flowchart to explain how Github works, removes it after original creator calls it out: ‘Careless, blatantly amateuristic, and lacking any ambition, to put it gently’ Platforms Open-source game engine Godot is drowning in ‘AI slop’ code contributions: ‘I don’t know how long we can keep it up’ Third Person Shooter Remember Postal? 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Losing it is,’ claims the director of the Internet Archive AI Anthropic says it has identified thousands of ‘fraudulent accounts’ taking Claude and ‘extracting its capabilities to train and improve their own models’ AI A redditor claims to have found a horrifying, AI-generated, multi-limbed figure in a rental house listing photo and it’s exactly the sort of Phasmophobia-style jump scare I didn’t need this morning RPG RPG dev pushes back against Steam review AI accusations: ‘We poured years of our lives into this game and only worked with real human artists on everything’ PopularNEW: PC Gamer Clips!Resident EvilArc RaidersBest PC gearGame Quizzes Software AI AI-generated images still can’t be copyrighted as US Supreme Court declines to hear case News By Tyler Wilde published 3 March 2026 AI users will have to demonstrate sufficient human authorship if they want copyright protections for images generated from prompts. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. (Image credit: DABUS/Stephen Thaler) Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter PC Gamer Get the PC Gamer Newsletter Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. You are now subscribed Your newsletter sign-up was successful Want to add more newsletters? Every Friday GamesRadar+ Your weekly update on everything you could ever want to know about the games you already love, games we know you’re going to love in the near future, and tales from the communities that surround them. 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From first-look trailers, interviews, reviews and explainers, we’ve got you covered. Signup + Once a month SFX Get sneak previews, exclusive competitions and details of special events each month! Signup + An account already exists for this email address, please log in. Subscribe to our newsletter As reported Monday by Reuters, the US Supreme Court has affirmed the US Copyright Office’s stance that purely AI-generated images cannot be copyrighted, declining to hear a case brought by computer scientist Dr. Stephen Thaler, who for years has been seeking copyright protection for an AI-generated image titled “A Recent Entrance to Paradise.”You can see that image above, on account of it not being copyrighted.The Copyright Office declined Thaler’s initial request in 2022 because it said that the image didn’t meet the requirement of “human authorship.” Thaler appealed, but a federal court said the same thing. Now that the Supreme Court has turned the case away, there’s no higher authority to appeal to in the US. Related articles Steam updates AI disclosure form to specify that it’s focused on AI-generated content that is ‘consumed by players,’ not efficiency tools used behind the scenes Nvidia allegedly greenlit the use of pirated books from illegal sources to train its AI models, according to an expanded class-action lawsuit Microsoft uses plagiarized AI slop flowchart to explain how Github works, removes it after original creator calls it out: ‘Careless, blatantly amateuristic, and lacking any ambition,