AI researcher Stephen Thaler has applied for copyright of an AI-generated artwork for a system called DABUS that he has built. Thaler has made similar applications in 16 other global jurisdictions
The Delhi High Court on Thursday (April 9) directed the Office, which is responsible for administering and enforcing India’s copyright system in accordance with The Copyright Act, 1957, to dispose of preferably within eight weeks from April 27, an application by an American computer scientist who is on a global mission to obtain authorship rights for the “autonomous” AI that he has built.
The researcher, Stephen Thaler, CEO of the AI company Imagination Engines, applied to the Registrar of Copyrights, an officer appointed by the central government to head the Copyright Office, in March 2022, seeking ownership and authorship rights over “A Recent Entrance to Paradise”, an artwork generated by an AI system developed by Thaler.
The system, called Device for the Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Sentience or DABUS, is claimed to autonomously generate novel ideas, inventions, and creative works through artificial neural network processes.
After the copyright application remained pending before the Registrar of Copyrights for more than four years, Thaler had moved the High Court seeking a direction to the Registrar to decide his application expeditiously.
In November 2020, the Copyright Office, which functions under the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, had granted copyright for an AI-generated artwork titled “Suryast”. However, in that case, the tool used to generate the artwork, RAGHAV AI (where RAGHAV stands for Robust Artificially Intelligent Graphics and Arts Visualiser), was listed as a co-author along with Advocate Ankit Sahni.
Suryast was a picture of a sunset taken by Sahni, which was rendered along the lines of the Dutch master Vincent van Gogh’s 19th century painting The Starry Night using prompts given to the RAGHAV AI painting app.
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The Copyright Office had earlier issued a ‘discrepancy letter’ on Thaler’s application, saying that “as per law only natural person can be author of any artistic work”, and requesting him to “provide proper name of author and NOC (no-objection certificate) of the author in favour of applicant”.
Thaler had responded that “owing to the level of autonomy with which DABUS functions and generates original artistic works, it is submitted that DABUS has ‘caused the work to be generated’”, and “it would be misleading to…list any entity other than DABUS as the author of the…work.”
He had also argued that “it would be inappropriate to list Dr Thaler as an author given he did not contribute directly…as an author”. However, “should the Copyright Office believe it necessary given his causal role in the generation of the work, we believe DABUS should then be listed as co-author…”.
The Copyright Office had listed the application for hearing in March 2024, but an adjournment was sought. The hearing is now scheduled for April 27 this year.
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Sahni said Thaler has so far approached 16 jurisdictions worldwide seeking DABUS’s copyright over the artwork.
In March 2025, a US court refused his application saying the US Copyright Act requires human authorship. In other countries such as the United Kingdom and Ireland too, authorship is clearly associated with the human persona, or with the person who made the necessary arrangements for a computer-generated work.
In 2019, a Chinese court ruled in favour of the Tencent company’s ownership over content written by its AI-writing assistant Dreamwriter.
In another case in 2023, another court in China held that “as long as the AI generated images can reflect people’s original intellectual investment, they should be recognized as works and protected by the Copyright Law”, but clarified that copyright belongs to the author, who is a “natural person who creates a work” – and “an artificial intelligence model cannot be deemed as an author under China’s copyright law.”
Sohini Ghosh is a Senior Correspondent at The Indian Express. Previously based in Ahmedabad covering Gujarat, she recently moved to the New Delhi bureau, where she primarily covers legal developments at the Delhi High Court
Professional Profile
Background: An alumna of the Asian College of Journalism (ACJ), she previously worked with ET NOW before joining The Indian Express.
Core Beats: Her reporting is currently centered on the Delhi High Court, with a focus on high-profile constitutional disputes, disputes over intellectual property, criminal and civil cases, issues of human rights and regulatory law (especially in the areas of technology and healthcare).
Earlier Specialty: In Gujarat, she was known for her rigorous coverage in the beats of crime, law and policy, and social justice issues, including the 2002 riot cases, 2008 serial bomb blast case, 2016 flogging of Dalits in Una, among others.
She has extensively covered health in the state, including being part of the team that revealed the segregation of wards at the state’s largest government hospital on lines of faith in April 2020.
With Ahmedabad being a UNESCO heritage city, she has widely covered urban development and heritage issues, including the redevelopment of the Sabarmati Ashram
Recent Notable Articles (Late 2025)
Her recent reporting from the Delhi High Court covers major political, constitutional, corporate, and public-interest legal battles:
High-Profile Case Coverage
She has extensively covered the various legal battles - including for compensation under the aegis of North East Delhi Riots Claims Commission - pertaining to the 2020 northeast Delhi riots, as well as 1984 anti-Sikh riots.
She has also led coverage at the intersection of technology and governance, and its impact on the citizenry, from, and beyond courtrooms — such as the government’s stakeholder consultations for framing AI-Deepfake policy.
Signature Style
Sohini is recognized for her sustained reporting from courtrooms and beyond. She specialises in breaking down dense legal arguments to make legalese accessible for readers. Her transition from Gujarat to Delhi has seen her expand her coverage on regulatory, corporate and intellectual property law, while maintaining a strong commitment to human rights and lacuna in the criminal justice system.
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