On February 14, 2022, the US Copyright Office Review Board issued an opinion letter affirming the refusal to register a work autonomously created by a computer algorithm running on a machine, concluding that human authorship is a prerequisite for copyright protection.

Stephen L. Thaler filed a copyright registration application on November 3, 2018 for a two-dimensional artwork titled "A Recent Entrance to Paradise." The application named the author as the "Creativity Machine," noting that:

In August 2019, the Copyright Office refused registration because it lacked the human authorship necessary to support a copyright claim. Thaler requested reconsideration of the initial refusal, arguing that the human authorship requirement was unconstitutional and unsupported by statute or case law. The Copyright Office again concluded that the work lacked the necessary human authorship and stated that it would not depart from its longstanding interpretation of the Copyright Act and Supreme Court and lower court precedent that copyright protection is limited to works created by human authors. Thaler then filed a second request for reconsideration, reiterating his arguments that the human authorship requirement is unconstitutional and unsupported by case law.

After reviewing this second request, the Board affirmed the Registration Program's denial of registration, reasoning that:

The Board also rejected Thaler's argument that the work-made-for-hire doctrine permits artificial intelligence to be an author under copyright law because the doctrine permits non-human, artificial persons, such as companies, to be authors. The Board noted that:

The Board concluded that Thaler's second request amounts to a policy argument for legal protection of works created by artificial intelligence with no supporting case law or other precedent.