Prompter or creator? India’s copyright office rejects AI DABUS as author in artwork case | Hyderabad News

Hyderabad: Who owns the copyright on a piece of artwork made by artificial intelligence (AI)? The human who gave the prompts or the AI system that executed it?In a first-of-its-kind ruling on artificial intelligence and copyright, India’s copyright office has rejected an application seeking to register an artwork with an AI system, DABUS, listed as its author.In an order dated August 31, 2026, the Registrar of Copyrights, professor (Dr) Unnat P Pandit, held that while the artwork, ‘A Recent Entrance to Paradise’, met the originality requirement under Indian copyright law, DABUS could not be recognised as its author because it is neither a natural person nor a juristic person under law.The application was filed on May 3, 2022, by US inventor Dr Stephen L Thaler, describing the work as an artistic work first published in the United States in 2016. Thaler named ‘Device for the Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Sentience’ — DABUS — as the author, while claiming ownership of the copyright himself.The copyright office objected to the application, asking how an AI system could satisfy Section 2(d)(vi) of the Copyright Act, which defines the author of a computer-generated work as “the person who causes the work to be created”. It also questioned how ownership could vest in Thaler if DABUS, the named author, had no legal capacity to own or assign copyright.Thaler’s representatives argued that DABUS autonomously generated the final image through neural-network processes, including training, association formation, perturbation, monitoring, stabilisation and output generation. They said Thaler’s role was limited to designing, configuring and training the system, while DABUS carried out the core creative act.The Registrar accepted that the use of technology did not, by itself, defeat originality. The order said the artwork was not shown to have been copied from any earlier work and contained sufficient expressive creativity under the standard laid down in Eastern Book Company v DB Modak case.However, the office distinguished originality from authorship. It held that Section 2(d)(vi) attributes authorship to the legally recognised person who caused the work to be created, not to the machine that generated the immediate output. The office found that person to be Thaler, who conceived the system, supplied visual and linguistic inputs, configured it and initiated the process.The order noted that Thaler was given an opportunity to amend the application by naming himself as the author, but he declined and maintained that DABUS should be recognised.Rejecting the application, the Registrar said any extension of legal personhood or authorship to autonomous AI systems is a matter for Parliament to decide and cannot be done through administrative reinterpretation of the Copyright Act.Subhajit Saha, CEO, Resolute IP Services LLP, said AI will increasingly be used across fields and such cases will help shape future laws and regulations for AI-based innovations, including questions of authorship, inventorship and enforcement remedies.The ruling leaves the broader policy question of whether autonomous AI systems should ever receive legal rights or authorship to lawmakers, with the copyright office holding that such changes must come through legislation, Saha added.