In a landmark decision, India's Copyright Office has ruled that an artificial intelligence system cannot be recognised as an author under the Copyright Act, 1957, even if it autonomously generates an original work.

The order, issued on August 31, 2026, by Registrar of Copyrights Prof (Dr) Unnat P Pandit, rejected an application filed by American computer scientist Dr Stephen L Thaler seeking copyright registration for an artwork titled "A Recent Entrance to Paradise" . The application named Thaler's AI system DABUS (Device for the Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Sentience) as the author, with Thaler claiming ownership.

While the office found that the artwork satisfied the originality requirement under Section 13 of the Act, it held that DABUS could not be entered as the author because it is neither a natural person nor a juristic person recognised in law.

The Case and Its Central Questions

Thaler filed the application on May 3, 2022, describing the work as an artistic piece first published in the United States in 2016. According to Thaler, DABUS generated the artwork entirely autonomously through a multi-stage neural network process — including training, association formation, perturbation, monitoring, stabilisation and output generation — without any real-time human intervention or text prompt.

The Copyright Office raised objections, questioning how an AI system could satisfy Section 2(d)(vi) of the Act , which defines the author of a computer-generated work as "the person who causes the work to be created" . It also asked how Thaler could claim ownership if DABUS, the named author, lacked the legal capacity to own or assign copyright.

During the proceedings, the office granted Thaler an opportunity to amend the application by naming himself as the author. He declined and maintained that DABUS should be recognised.

Originality Established, Authorship Denied

The Registrar first addressed whether the work met the originality threshold. Drawing on the Supreme Court's standard in Eastern Book Company v. D.B. Modak (2008), which requires a minimum degree of creativity and independent creation, the office concluded that "A Recent Entrance to Paradise" possessed sufficient expressive character.

The order noted that the work "contains an identifiable arrangement of colours, forms, tonal variations and spatial elements" and was not shown to be copied from any pre-existing work. It clarified that "the use of technology does not, by itself, defeat originality ."

However, the office drew a sharp distinction between originality and authorship . "Section 13 examines whether the resulting work possesses independently generated, non-trivial expressive character ; Section 2(d)(vi) separately identifies the legally recognised person to whom authorship of that work is attributed," the order stated.

Who "Causes" the Work to Be Created?

The critical legal question turned on the interpretation of Section 2(d)(vi). Thaler argued that DABUS performed the core generative process and should therefore be named as the author. He contended that the phrase "the person who causes the work to be created" should be read functionally, focusing on the immediate causal agent.

The Registrar rejected this interpretation, holding that the provision attributes authorship to the legally recognised person responsible for the work's origination — not to the technological mechanism that generated the final output.

"Section 2(d)(vi) does not ask merely which device or computational process mechanically generated the final pixels constituting the work," the order explained. "It requires the identification of the person who, in law and on the facts, caused the work to be created."

Applying this standard, the Registrar found that Thaler himself was that person. He conceived and created the DABUS system, configured its operation, supplied the visual and linguistic inputs, provided textual descriptions linking them, and initiated the process that produced the specific artwork. " Autonomy in execution is not synonymous with conception of a work," the order emphasised.

The Legal Personality Barrier

The office also addressed whether DABUS could be treated as a "person" for purposes of authorship. Thaler had drawn analogies to Section 2(d)(v), which recognises a company as the author of a cinematograph film, and to the concept of a deity acting through a next friend.

The Registrar found these comparisons inapposite. Unlike a company, which is a juristic person recognised by law, DABUS possesses no statutory recognition, no proprietary status, and no legal capacity independent of its creator. The order stated: "DABUS has no statutory recognition, no civil personality, no treaty identity, and no legal capacity independent of its human creator or controller."

Recognising DABUS as an author would effectively create a new category of technological juristic persons through administrative interpretation — a step the office said must be left to Parliament.

Ownership and the Chain of Title

The application's claim of ownership also faltered. Thaler named DABUS as the author but claimed copyright ownership himself, without demonstrating any valid statutory route for the transfer of rights.

Section 17 provides that the author is the first owner, subject to specific exceptions. Since DABUS cannot hold or assign copyright, and no exception under Section 17 was established, the ownership claim could not be sustained.

"If DABUS is the author and consequently the putative first owner under the general rule in Section 17 , DABUS must possess the legal capacity to hold and transfer copyright. If, as the Applicant concedes, DABUS possesses no such capacity, no copyright can pass from DABUS to Dr. Thaler," the order reasoned.

The Registrar rejected a fallback request to record DABUS merely as the technological generator in the Register, holding that the remarks column cannot be used to indirectly confer legal status on an AI system.

Key Observations

The judgment contains several pivotal passages:

"The fact that a system operates autonomously after being configured does not alter the identity of the person responsible for bringing the work into existence. Autonomy in execution is not synonymous with conception of a work."
"The law distinguishes between the technological mechanism through which the output is generated and the legally recognised person to whom authorship is attributed."
"Whether legal personhood or authorship should ever be extended to autonomous artificial intelligence remains a policy decision strictly reserved for Parliament , and cannot be introduced via administrative reinterpretation."

The Final Order and Its Implications

The Registrar rejected the application under Diary No. 9356/2022-CO/A because it "was maintained exclusively on the premise of AI authorship ." However, the order explicitly leaves the door open for Thaler to file a fresh application with corrected authorship particulars naming himself as the statutory author .

"This rejection does not preclude Dr. Stephen L. Thaler from pursuing such remedy as may be available in law on the basis of particulars correctly identifying the author and the corresponding basis of ownership," the order clarified.

The ruling is among the first in India to squarely address the question of AI authorship in copyright law. It establishes that while AI-generated works can qualify for copyright protection, the author must be a legally recognised person — human or juristic — who caused the work to be created. The decision reinforces the principle that copyright law attributes authorship to the "mastermind" or directing intellect behind the work, not to the autonomous tool used in its execution.

As artificial intelligence continues to permeate creative fields, the Copyright Office has made clear that any change to the fundamental structure of authorship must come from Parliament, not through administrative interpretation of existing statutes.