ce instructs applicants to follow its recent guidance to avoid ineffective registration. Ineffective registration creates risks such as complicating future enforcement litigation, including litigation being delayed for referral back to the Office,[18] as well as potential statute of limitations issues and losing time-dependent advantages of registration such as statutory damages, attorneys’ fees, and the presumption of validity.[19]The Copyright Office’s guidance is just the beginning. For instance, the Office has launched an initiative to examine AI-related copyright issues, and will be holding “listening sessions” addressing those issues in the weeks to come.[20] The Office has also announced its intent to publish a notice of inquiry later this year seeking public input on issues related to AI-generated works. Thus, further guidance from the Office will likely be forthcoming.Footnotes[1] Copyright Registration Guidance: Works Containing Material Generated by Artificial Intelligence, 88 Fed. Reg. 16,190 (Mar. 16, 2023), https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/03/16/2023-05321/copyright-registration-guidance-works-containing-material-generated-by-artificial-intelligence. [2] See Joseph Weizenbaum, ELIZA—A Computer Program for the Study of Natural Language Communication Between Man and Machine, 9 Comms. of the Assoc. for Computing Machinery 36 (Jan. 1, 1966). [3] See US Copyright Office Review Board, Decision Affirming Refusal of Registration of a Recent Entrance to Paradise (Feb. 14, 2022), https://www.copyright.gov/rulings-filings/review-board/docs/a-recent-entrance-to-paradise.pdf. [4] Complaint, ECF No. 1, Thaler v. Perlmutter, No. 1:22-cv-01564-BAH (D.D.C. Jan. 10, 2023). A motion for summary judgment is pending. [5] US Copyright Office Review Board, Cancellation Decision re: Zarya of the Dawn, at 8 (Feb. 21, 2023), https://www.copyright.gov/docs/zarya-of-the-dawn.pdf. [6] Id. [7] Naruto v. Slater, 888 F.3d 418 (9th Cir. 2018). [8] Kelley v. Chicago Park District, 635 F.3d 290 (7th Cir. 20

authors. The reason being, he explained, was that the AI's contribution is "distinct, disparate and independent" from his contribution.As it has done in similar cases, surveyed below, the Copyright Office refused to register the work. The Copyright Office ruled that the work "lacked the human authorship necessary to support a copyright claim."After a first request for reconsideration, the Copyright Office explained that the work was a "classic example of derivative authorship because it was a digital adaptation of a photograph." A derivative work contains two forms of authorship: one in the preexisting work and another in the modification of the preexisting work. (See U.S. Copyright Office, Compendium of U.S. Copyright Office Practices § 507.1 (3d ed. 2021).) Authorship in the modification of a work is registrable if it contains a sufficient amount of original, human authorship. (See id; "Copyright Registration Guidance: Works Containing Material Generated by Artificial Intelligence," 88 Fed. Reg. 16,190, 16,192 (March 16, 2023).) In this case, because the modification was attributable to RAGHAV, there was no human author and the work was not registrable. Moreover, the Copyright Office noted that even if RAGHAV was removed as an author on the application, its conclusion would not change.Mr. Sahni based his second request for reconsideration on three arguments. First, Mr. Sahni changed his position to say that RAGHAV was an "assistive software tool" – akin to Adobe Photoshop and subject to his control – instead of an independent author. Second, Mr. Sahni's artistic contributions included composing the original photo and selecting it for input, as well as selecting the style to be applied and the degree of stylization. Third, the work was not derivative because the original photograph was just an early stage of what would become the final work, like a painter making a sketch before completing a painting.The Copyright Office's Review Board was not amenable to Mr. Sahni's arguments. The board ruled that RAGHAV's

uld become a hurdle years from now.The second bill requires human operators of autonomous vehicles to hold a valid drivers’ license. Although this bill would not impose a severe restriction on autonomous vehicles as they are used presently, it could be a deterrent for further investment in autonomous vehicles, as one of the populations potentially benefitting from the technology are the elderly, disabled and others that may not have a drivers’ license. Further, it seems ineffective as a safety measure, as some autonomous vehicles have completely different operating requirements than those necessary to operate a traditional vehicle.43FOOTNOTESIn re Second Amended Standing Gen. Ord. 2021-01, Nat’l Highway Traffic Safety Admin. (2023), https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.gov/files/2023-04/Second-Amended-SGO-2021-01_2023-04-05_2.pdf.Strengthening Mobility and Revolutionizing Transp. (SMART) Grants Program, U.S. Department of Transportation (2023), https://www.transportation.gov/grants/SMART.88 Fed. Reg. 16,724 (Mar. 20, 2023), https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2023-03-20/pdf/2023-05569.pdf.Automated Vehicle Transparency and Engagement for Safe Testing Initiative, 88 Fed. Reg. 20,608 (Apr. 6, 2023), https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2023-04-06/pdf/2023-07123.pdf.Automated Road Transportation Symposium (ARTS23) Keynote Address by Ann Carlson, NHTSA Acting Administrator (Jul. 12, 2023), https://www.nhtsa.gov/speeches-presentations/automated-road-transportation-symposium-arts23-keynote-address; see also NHTSA Suggests a New Regulatory Path for Self-Driving Vehicles, CBT News (Jul. 13, 2023), https://www.cbtnews.com/nhtsa-suggests-a-new-regulatory-path-for-self-driving-vehicles/.Safe Integration of Automated Driving Systems (ADS)–Equipped Commercial Motor Vehicles (CMVs), 88 Fed. Reg. 6,691 (Feb. 1, 2023), https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/02/01/2023-02073/safe-integration-of-automated-driving-systems-ads-equipped-commercial-motor-vehicles-cmvs.88 Fed. Reg. 24,652 (Apr. 21, 2023), https:/

s, or if they reflect the author’s “own mental conception.” To that end, “The answer will depend on the circumstances, particularly how the AI tool operates and how it was used to create the final work,” the office said.While copyright law offers some level of protection to music artists’ voices, the rapid progression of AI technology presents some exciting challenges that both law and technology will have to confront. AI-generated voice replication blurs the lines between original creations and imitations while testing the boundaries of copyright law. As AI continues to evolve, it will be interesting to see how the law and policy evolve to match it.Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Company, Inc., 499 U.S. 340 (1991).See Burrow-Giles Lithographic Co. v. Sarony, 111 U.S. 53, 56 (1884); Urantia Found. v. Kristen Maaherra, 114 F.3d 955, 957–59 (9th Cir. 1997); Naruto v. Slater, 888 F.3d 418 (9th Cir. 2018); Kelley v. Chicago Park Dist., 635 F.3d 290 (7th Cir. 2011).[5] 88 Fed. Reg. 16,190 (Mar. 16, 2023).Id.Id.[View source.]

AI-innovation loop today. In recent comments to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office ("USPTO") on questions of AI invention, practitioners generally agreed that AI-assisted innovation was still human-centric in that human supervision and control of AI tools are central to the innovation process. According to these comments, humans making refinements in the AI-invention loop would satisfy the conception requirement so as to qualify as inventors.In a second example, a user providing little if any verification or refinement of AI-output may have a more difficulty qualifying as a generative AI-assisted invention. Generative AI may in some instances provides wholly novel output in response to a user's prompt, and how inventorship should be handled in that instance is currently unclear.A comparison to copyright law is interesting and may be useful. As discussed in our recent Commentary, the United States Copyright Office recently issued policy rejecting copyright for AI-generated material. 88 Fed. Reg. 16,190 (Mar. 16, 2023). The Office's view is that "[i]f a work's traditional elements of authorship were produced by a machine, the work lacks human authorship and the Office will not register it." Id. at 16,192. When a human gives an AI "solely a prompt" and the AI generates "complex written, visual, or musical works in response," the situation is akin to the human giving "instructions to a commissioned artist." Id. The AI is the one that "determines the expressive elements of its output," so the resulting work "is not protected by copyright and must be disclaimed in a registration application." Id. Thus, copyright provides some indication that prompt engineers may not qualify as inventors.With that said, this logic depends on copyright's requirement of human authorship; whether this logic extends to human inventorship remains to be seen. While there may be some creativity involved when a user's inputted prompt results in an AI model's generation of content, the input might not be sufficiently creative to

. In its defense, the company might raise the doctrine of scène à faire if the code is simple and standard, the idea/expression dichotomy to argue that only unprotectable ideas were copied, and fair use. While there is ample case law related to these common copyright infringement defenses, they are largely untested in the context of AI.Can the Output be Protected?Despite the potential legal issues that could arise, the company weighs the pros and cons of using generative AI tools and decides to allow its programmers to use AI-generated code and incorporate it into company software. But then somebody raises a question: "What if a competitor decides to just copy the code? Is there anything we can do to stop that?"The answer to this question is likely to depend largely on the extent of a human author's selection, arrangement and/or modification of the code . The United States Copyright Office recently issued a statement of policy on registration of works containing AI-generated material. 88 Fed. Reg. 16,190 (Mar. 16, 2023). The Office's view is that "[i]f a work's traditional elements of authorship were produced by a machine, the work lacks human authorship and the Office will not register it." Id. at 16,192. When a human gives an AI "solely a prompt" and the AI generates "complex written, visual, or musical works in response," the situation is akin to the human giving "instructions to a commissioned artist." Id. The AI is the one that "determines the expressive elements of its output," so the resulting work "is not protected by copyright and must be disclaimed in a registration application." Id. Despite this, the company need not lose hope. The question of whether an AI-generated work without human authorship can be registered is currently being litigated. See Thaler v. Perlmutter, No. 1:22-cv-01564 (D.D.C). Others are trying to work around the Office's guidance by using their own images as input to generative AI as an "assisting instrument." See Tiffany Hu, Artist Seeks Copyright Of AI Artwork That Us

egulations.Throughout the spring, the Copyright Office will be hosting listening sessions for artists and other stakeholders to discuss the role of AI and the scope of copyright law. Later in the year, the Copyright Office plans to solicit public comment on specific topics related to artificial intelligence in order to facilitate further policy statements and potential rulemaking. Information regarding these events and other updates from the Copyright Office related to AI can be found on their newly launched webpage (https://copyright.gov/ai/).ConclusionArtificial intelligence will continue to play a greater role in all facets of society and our daily lives. As technology becomes more integrated in the creative process, the law will be playing catch up to conform to our new reality and craft rules and regulations to protect the interests of intellectual property holders.___________________ Copyright Registration Guidance: Works Containing Material Generated by Artificial Intelligence, 88 Fed. Reg. 16,190 (Mar. 16, 2023). 17 U.S.C. § 102(a).See, e.g., Burrow-Giles Lithographic Co. v. Sarony, 111. U.S. 53 (1884).See, e.g., Urantia Found. v. Kristen Maaherra, 114 F.3d 955 (9th Cir. 1997); Kelley v. Chi. Park Dist., 635 F.3d 290 (7th Cir. 2011); Naruto v. Slater, 888 F.3d 418 (9th Cir. 2018); Stebbins v. Polano, No. 21-cv-04184-JSW, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 121919 (N.D. Cal. July 11, 2022). U.S. Copyright Office, Compendium of the U.S. Copyright Office Practices § 313.2 (3d ed. 2021). Ana Diaz, AI Seinfeld Is Taking over Twitch, Polygon, https://www.polygon.com/23582937/ai-seinfeld-twitch-stream (Feb. 6, 2023, 12:13 PM).See supra note 1, at 16,192. U.S. Copyright Office, Cancellation Decision re: Zarya of the Dawn (VAu001480196), at 2 (Feb. 21, 2023),https://www.copyright.gov/docs/zarya-of-the-dawn.pdf. Tiffany Hu, Artist Seeks Copyright of AI Artwork That Uses Own Drawing, Law360, https://www.law360.com/articles/1589396/artist-seeks-copyright-of-ai-artwork-that-uses-own-drawing (Mar. 23, 2023, 10:19 PM). 1