Indian Copyright Office Rejects DABUS Authorship Claim, Holds AI System Cannot Be Recognised as Author

Summary

The Registrar of Copyrights rejected an application filed by Dr. Stephen L. Thaler for registration of the work titled “A Recent Entrance to Paradise”, in which DABUS (Device for the Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Sentience) was identified as the author. While the Registrar accepted that the AI-generated artwork satisfied the limited threshold of originality under Section 13 of the Copyright Act, 1957, it held that DABUS could not be recognised as the statutory author under Section 2(d)(vi).

Facts of the Case

Dr. Stephen L. Thaler applied under Section 45 of the Copyright Act for registration of the artistic work “A Recent Entrance to Paradise”, stating that it was first published in the USA in 2016 and identifying DABUS as its author.

According to the Applicant, DABUS was an AI system conceived, created and developed by Dr. Thaler. The system comprised interconnected neural networks and autonomously generated the artwork through processes involving training, association formation, perturbation, monitoring, stabilisation and output generation, without real-time human intervention or a text prompt. Dr. Thaler had, however, designed and configured the system and supplied and curated the visual and linguistic inputs. 

The Copyright Office raised objections concerning originality, authorship, first ownership and the legal status of DABUS. Despite being given an opportunity during the hearing to amend the application and identify Dr. Thaler as the author, the Applicant declined and continued to maintain DABUS as the author.

Issue before the Registrar

The principal questions before the Registrar were:

1. Whether the AI-generated artwork satisfied the originality requirement under Section 13 of the Act;
2. Who was “the person who causes the work to be created” under Section 2(d)(vi) of the Act;
3. Whether Dr. Thaler could claim first ownership under Sections 17-19 of the Act, while DABUS was identified as the author; and
4. Whether DABUS could be recorded merely as the technological system through which the work was generated.

Findings of the Registrar

The Registrar first held that the artwork satisfied the threshold of originality under Section 13 of the Act. Applying Eastern Book Company vs. D.B. Modak, the Registrar observed that copyright does not require novelty or inventive ingenuity, but the work must contain at least a minimal degree of non-trivial creativity and must not be copied, commonplace or mechanically predetermined. The fact that technology was indispensable to producing the work did not, by itself, render the output unoriginal. 

On authorship, however, the Registrar drew a distinction between the technological mechanism generating the output and the person to whom authorship is legally attributed. Section 2(d)(vi) specifically identifies the author of a computer-generated work as “the person who causes the work to be created”. It does not confer authorship upon the computer or AI system producing the immediate output.

Applying this test to the facts, the Registrar held that Dr. Thaler had conceived and created DABUS, configured its operation, supplied and curated the inputs, provided textual descriptions and initiated the process that resulted in the particular artwork. Accordingly, notwithstanding DABUS’s autonomous generation of the final visual output, Dr. Thaler was the person who caused the work to be created within the meaning of Section 2(d)(vi) of the Act.

The Registrar rejected the distinction sought to be drawn between an “upstream cause” and an “immediate cause”. Autonomy in execution, it was held, is not synonymous with conception of the work.

The Registrar further held that DABUS was neither a natural nor a juristic person recognised by law, and possessed no independent legal capacity to own property, enforce rights, assign copyright or bear legal obligations. Recognising it as an author would effectively create a new category of technological juristic person, which could not be achieved through administrative interpretation.

Held

The Applicant’s claim that DABUS be treated as the author while Dr. Thaler be recognised as owner was held to be inconsistent with Sections 17-19 of the Act. Since the author is ordinarily the first owner under Section 17 of the Act, a different ownership arrangement requires a statutory exception or valid transfer in accordance with Sections 18 and 19 of the Act. DABUS, being incapable of holding or assigning copyright, could not provide the necessary chain of title.

The Registrar clarified that this did not mean that Dr. Thaler could never be the first owner. Rather, on the facts disclosed, the defect was that the application continued to identify DABUS as author and Dr. Thaler as owner, despite the Registrar finding Dr. Thaler to be the statutory author.

The application was therefore rejected, since the Applicant, despite being afforded an opportunity to correct the authorship particulars, deliberately maintained its claim of DABUS authorship. The Registrar expressly left open the possibility of a fresh or appropriately formulated request concerning DABUS merely as the technological system used to generate the work, without attributing legal authorship to it. 

Conclusion

The decision draws an important distinction between AI-generated expression and AI authorship. An AI-generated work may satisfy the originality requirement under Section 13 of the Act, but the AI system itself cannot presently be treated as the statutory author under Section 2(d)(vi) of the Act. The controlling enquiry remains who, as a legally recognised person, caused the work to be created, with the Registrar holding that legislative intervention, rather than administrative interpretation, would be required to confer authorship or legal personality upon autonomous AI systems.

Last Updated on 21 September, 2026