譯者 |張紫煊 北京師範大學 法律碩士
一審 |胡婧卓 ucla LL.M.
二審 |李梓源 bristol LL.M.
複審 |胡婧卓 ucla LL.M.
編輯 | Loca 中國社會科學院大學碩士
責編 | 劉一賢 國際關係學院本科
美國法院否認人工智慧生成作品可版權性
Stephen Thaler V. Shira Perlmutter,
Register of Copyrights and Director of the United States Copyright Office, et al.
一、案件概述
Plaintiff Stephen Thaler owns a computer system he calls the “Creativity Machine,” which he claims generated a piece of visual art of its own accord. He sought to register the work for a copyright, listing the computer system as the author and explaining that the copyright should transfer to him as the owner of the machine. The Copyright Office denied the application on the grounds that the work lacked human authorship, a prerequisite for a valid copyright to issue, in the view of the Register of Copyrights. […]
原告計算機科學家斯蒂芬·泰勒（Stephen Thaler）開發了一款名為“Creativity machine”的人工智慧計算機程式。泰勒透過該計算機系統生成了一幅名為“Recent entrance to Paradise”（最近的天堂入口）的畫作。他試圖將該計算機系統列為作者，替該作品申請版權，作為機器的擁有者，他則可透過版權轉移而成為版權人。版權局以該作品缺乏人類作者身份為由拒絕了申請，並認為人類作者身份是頒發有效版權的先決條件。
（案涉圖片）
Plaintiff requested reconsideration of his application, confirming that the work “was autonomously generated by an AI” and “lacked traditional human authorship,” but contesting the Copyright Office’s human authorship requirement and urging that AI should be “acknowledged . . . as an author where it otherwise meets authorship criteria, with any copyright ownership vesting in the AI’s owner.”[…] Again, the Copyright Office refused to register the work, reiterating its original rationale that “because copyright law is limited to ‘original intellectual conceptions of the author,’ the Office will refuse to register a claim if it determines that a human being did not create the work.”
原告請求版權局重新審議其申請。原告雖承認該作品“是由人工智慧自主生成的”且“缺乏傳統的人類作者身份”，但他對版權局關於人類作者身份的要求提出異議，並主張人工智慧只有符合作者身份的要求的前提下，才應被承認為作者且享有作品的版權。版權局再次拒絕了申請，並重申了最初拒絕時的理由，即“版權法僅適用於作者的原創智力構思”。如果版權局確定作品不是由人類創作的，則有權拒絕註冊該申請。
Plaintiff timely challenged that decision in this Court, claiming that defendants’ denial of copyright registration to the work titled “A Recent Entrance to Paradise,” was “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion and not in accordance with the law, unsupported by substantial evidence, and in excess of Defendants’ statutory authority,” in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”), 5 U.S.C. § 706(2). […] The parties agree upon the key facts narrated above to focus, in the pending cross-motions for summary judgment, on the sole legal issue of whether a work autonomously generated by an AI system is copyrightable. […]
[…] Plaintiff challenged that denial, culminating in this lawsuit against the United States Copyright Office and Shira Perlmutter, in her official capacity as the Register of Copyrights and the Director of the United States Copyright Office (“defendants”). Both parties have now moved for summary judgment, which motions present the sole issue of whether a work generated entirely by an artificial system absent human involvement should be eligible for copyright. See Pl.’s Mot. Summ. J. (Pl.’s Mot.”), ECF No. 16; Defs.’ Cross-Mot. Summ. J. (“Defs.’ Mot.”), ECF No. 17. For the reasons explained below, defendants are correct that human authorship is an essential part of a valid copyright claim, and therefore plaintiff’s pending motion for summary judgment is denied and defendants’ pending cross-motion for summary judgment is granted.
譯者注：這兩段分別在判決的第一段（應該是總結）與background中，內容基本重複，因此都列在這裡做合併翻譯了。
原告對此提出異議，並對美國版權局及其註冊官希拉·佩爾穆特（Shira Perlmutter）提起了訴訟，聲稱被告拒絕對《最近的天堂入口》的版權註冊是“任意、濫用裁量權，並且不符合法律，沒有實質證據支援，並超出被告的法定許可權”的，違反了《行政程式法》（“APA”）第 706(2)條。雙方目前均對基本事實無異議，已申請簡易判決，爭議的唯一問題是：完全由人工智慧系統自主生成且沒有人類參與的作品是否具有受版權保護的資格。最終被告獲得了支援，即法院支援人類作者身份是有效版權主張的核心，原告提出的簡易判決動議被拒絕，被告的交叉簡易判決動議被批准。
二、主要法律依據
Under the Copyright Act of 1976, copyright protection attaches “immediately” upon the creation of “original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression,” provided those works meet certain requirements. Fourth Estate v. Public Benefit Corporation v. Wall- Street.com, LLC, 139 S. Ct. 881, 887 (2019); 17 U.S.C. § 102(a). A copyright claimant can also register the work with the Register of Copyrights. Upon concluding that the work is indeed copyrightable, the Register will issue a certificate of registration, which, among other advantages, allows the claimant to pursue infringement claims in court. 17 U.S.C. §§ 410(a), 411(a); Unicolors v. H&M Hennes & Mauritz, L.P., 142 S. Ct. 941, 944–45 (2022). A valid copyright exists upon a qualifying work’s creation and “apart” from registration, however; a certificate of registration merely confirms that the copyright has existed all along. See Fourth Estate, 139 S. Ct. at 887. Conversely, if the Register denies an application for registration for lack of copyrightable subject matter—and did not err in doing so—then the work at issue was never subject to copyright protection at all.
根據1976年版權法，當“原創作者的作品固定在任何有形表達媒介中”時，版權保護“立即”生效，前提是這些作品需符合一定的要求。[1]版權權利人還有權向註冊官申請註冊作品。一旦註冊得到確認，註冊官將頒發註冊證書，這一證書允許權利人在法院提起侵權賠償訴訟。[2]版權在作品創作之時便已存在，且“獨立於”註冊；註冊證書僅用於確認版權自始存在的事實。[3]相反，如果註冊官因作品不具備可版權性而拒絕註冊申請，且該過程無瑕疵，則相關作品不受版權保護。
（圖片來源於網路）
三、判決結果
法院旨在說明人類創造力是可著作權性的必要條件，主要理由如下：
（1）版權法雖未規定“作者”的含義，但從立法歷史文字與通常含義來講，作者必須能夠進行智力、創造性或藝術勞動；
（2）從美國版權法的立法歷史來看，對作品的獨佔權將透過激勵個人創造和發明來促進公共利益，而人工智慧無需這種激勵；
（3）美國法院一直一致認可人類作者身份的要求，判決多次提到Sarony一案，攝影師在使用相機攝影過程中，傾注了智力構思，因而擁有版權。
Plaintiff attempts to complicate the issues presented by devoting a substantial portion of his briefing to the viability of various legal theories under which a copyright in the computer’s work would transfer to him, as the computer’s owner; for example, by operation of common law property principles or the work-for-hire doctrine. These arguments concern to whom a valid copyright should have been registered, and in so doing put the cart before the horse.1 By denying registration, the Register concluded that no valid copyright had ever existed in a work generated absent human involvement, leaving nothing at all to register and thus no question as to whom that registration belonged.
原告試圖透過在其陳述中花費大量篇幅探討各種法律理論下計算機作品的版權能否轉移給計算機所有者（即原告自己），從而使問題複雜化；例如，依據普通法財產原則或僱傭作品原則來實現這一目的。這些論點關注的是有效的版權本應註冊給誰，而註冊官透過拒絕註冊得出結論，在沒有人類參與的情況下產生的作品從未存在過有效的版權，因此根本沒有什麼可以註冊的，也就不存在註冊歸屬何方的問題。因此原告的論點本末倒置。
The only question properly presented, then, is whether the Register acted arbitrarily or capriciously or otherwise in violation of the APA in reaching that conclusion. The Register did not err in denying the copyright registration application presented by plaintiff. United States copyright law protects only works of human creation.
因此，唯一的問題是，註冊官在得出這一結論是否是任意的，或以其他方式違反了《行政程式法》（APA）。註冊官拒絕原告提出的版權註冊申請並無錯誤。美國版權法僅保護人類創作的作品。
Plaintiff correctly observes that throughout its long history, copyright law has proven malleable enough to cover works created with or involving technologies developed long after traditional media of writings memorialized on paper. See, e.g., Goldstein v. California, 412 U.S. 546, 561 (1973) (explaining that the constitutional scope of Congress’s power to “protect the ‘Writings’ of ‘Authors’” is “broad,” such that “writings” is not “limited to script or printed material,” but rather encompasses “any physical rendering of the fruits of creative intellectual or aesthetic labor”); Burrow-Giles Lithographic Co. v. Sarony, 111 U.S. 53, 58 (1884) (upholding the constitutionality of an amendment to the Copyright Act to cover photographs).
原告正確地指出，版權法在其悠久的歷史中展現出較高的靈活性，涵蓋使用或涉及傳統書面媒體（以紙張為載體）之後開發的技術創作的作品。例如，在Goldstein v. California一案中，最高法院解釋了國會保護“作者的‘著作’”的憲法權力範圍是“廣泛的”，因此“著作”並不“侷限於書面或印刷材料”，而是包括了“任何形式的創造性智力或美學勞動的實體表現”；在Burrow-Giles Lithographic Co. v. Sarony一案中，最高法院支援了版權法修正案將攝影作品納入的合憲性。
（圖片來源於網路）
In fact, that malleability is explicitly baked into the modern incarnation of the Copyright Act, which provides that copyright attaches to “original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression, now known or later developed.” 17 U.S.C. § 102(a) (emphasis added). Copyright is designed to adapt with the times. Underlying that adaptability, however, has been a consistent understanding that human creativity is the sine qua non at the core of copyrightability, even as that human creativity is channeled through new tools or into new media.
實際上，這種靈活性已經明確體現在現代版權法中，該法規定版權適用於“以任何現在已知或未來開發的有形媒介固定的原創作品”[4]版權法的設計旨在與時俱進。然而，在這一適應過程中，始終秉持著一個核心原則：人類創造力是作品可版權性的必要條件，即使這種人類創造力是透過新型工具或新型媒體來實現的。
In Sarony, for example, the Supreme Court reasoned that photographs amounted to copyrightable creations of “authors,” despite issuing from a mechanical device that merely reproduced an image of what is in front of the device, because the photographic result nonetheless “represented” the “original intellectual conceptions of the author.” Sarony, 111 U.S. at 59.
例如，在Sarony案中，最高法院認為儘管照片是由機械裝置生成的，僅僅再現了呈現在機械裝置前的影像，但由於攝影結果“代表”了“作者的原創智力構思”，因此也屬於可享有版權的創作作品。[5]
A camera may generate only a “mechanical reproduction” of a scene, but does so only after the photographer develops a “mental conception” of the photograph, which is given its final form by that photographer’s decisions like “posing the subject in front of the camera, selecting and arranging the costume, draperies, and other various accessories in said photograph, arranging the subject so as to present graceful outlines, arranging and disposing the light and shade, suggesting and evoking the desired expression, and from such disposition, arrangement, or representation” crafting the overall image. Id. at 59–60. Human involvement in, and ultimate creative control over, the work at issue was key to the conclusion that the new type of work fell within the bounds of copyright.
這種“智利構思”體現在攝影師“將拍攝物件置於鏡頭前，挑選並搭配服裝、佈置場景、調配各種道具，安排物件的姿態以展現最佳輪廓，調節光線與陰影，指導並捕捉所需表情，以及透過這一系列安排、構圖或表現”來創造出完整的影像。人類對作品的參與以及最終對創作的控制是這一新型別作品屬於版權保護範疇的關鍵。
Copyright has never stretched so far, however, as to protect works generated by new forms of technology operating absent any guiding human hand, as plaintiff urges here. Human authorship is a bedrock requirement of copyright.
然而，版權保護範疇從未如原告所主張的那樣，擴充套件到由新形式的技術生成、且在沒有任何人類指導所產生的作品。人類作者身份是版權的基本要求。
That principle follows from the plain text of the Copyright Act. The current incarnation of the copyright law, the Copyright Act of 1976, provides copyright protection to “original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression, now known or later developed, from which they can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device.” 17 U.S.C. § 102(a). The “fixing” of the work in the tangible medium must be done “by or under the authority of the author.” Id. § 101. In order to be eligible for copyright, then, a work must have an “author.”
這一原則源於版權法的明文規定。現行1976年版權法規定，版權保護適用於“以任何現在已知或未來開發的有形媒介固定的原創作品，從中可以直接或透過機器或裝置感知、複製或以其他方式傳播。”。作品的“固定”必須“由作者或在其授權下進行”。[7]為了符合版權保護的要求，一個作品必須有一個“作者”。
To be sure, as plaintiff points out, the critical word “author” is not defined in the Copyright Act. […]“Author,” in its relevant sense, means “one that is the source of some form of intellectual or creative work,” “the creator of an artistic work; a painter, photographer, filmmaker, etc.” By its plain text, the 1976 Act thus requires a copyrightable work to have an originator with the capacity for intellectual, creative, or artistic labor. Must that originator be a human being to claim copyright protection? The answer is yes.
誠然，正如原告所指出的，版權法中並未定義關鍵字“作者”的含義。“作者”在相關意義上指的是“某種形式的智力或創造性工作的源頭”，“藝術作品的創作者、畫家、攝影師、電影製作人等。”[8]因此，1976年法案明文規定的可版權化的作品必須有能夠進行智力、創造性或藝術勞動的創造者。這個創造者是否必須是人類？答案是肯定的。
The 1976 Act’s “authorship” requirement as presumptively being human rests on centuries of settled understanding. The Constitution enables the enactment of copyright and patent law by granting Congress the authority to “promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.” U.S. Const. art. 1, cl. 8. As James Madison explained, “the utility of this power will scarcely be questioned,” for “the public good fully coincides in both cases of copyright and patent with the claims of individuals.” THE FEDERALIST NO. 43 (James Madison).
將1976年法案的“作者身份”推定為人類，是基於數百年的既定理解。憲法透過賦予國會“為促進科學和實用藝術的進步，確保作者和發明人在一定的時間內享有其各自著作和發明的獨佔權”的權力，為版權法和專利法的制定奠定了基礎。正如詹姆斯·麥迪遜所解釋的那樣，“這一權力的效用幾乎沒有人會質疑”，因為“在版權和專利這兩種情形下，公共利益與個人權益是完全一致的。”
At the founding, both copyright and patent were conceived of as forms of property that the government was established to protect, and it was understood that recognizing exclusive rights in that property would further the public good by incentivizing individuals to create and invent. The act of human creation—and how to best encourage human individuals to engage in that creation, and thereby promote science and the useful arts—was thus central to American copyright from its very inception. Non-human actors need no incentivization with the promise of exclusive rights under United States law, and copyright was therefore not designed to reach them.
在權利設立之初，版權和專利被視為政府保護財產的形式，且普遍認為，承認對該財產的獨佔權能夠激勵個人創造和發明，進而促進公共利益。人類的創作行為——以及如何最大程度地鼓勵人類投身於這種創作，從而促進科學和實用藝術發展——在美國版權法的最初設想中就佔據核心地位。由於非人類行為者在美國法律下無需透過獲得獨佔權來獲得激勵，因此版權法的設計未將它們納入考量。
（圖片來源於網路）
The understanding that “authorship” is synonymous with human creation has persisted even as the copyright law has otherwise evolved. The immediate precursor to the modern copyright law—the Copyright Act of 1909—explicitly provided that only a “person” could “secure copyright for his work” under the Act. Act of Mar. 4, 1909, ch. 320, §§ 9, 10, 35 Stat. 1075, 1077. Copyright under the 1909 Act was thus unambiguously limited to the works of human creators. There is absolutely no indication that Congress intended to effect any change to this longstanding requirement with the modern incarnation of the copyright law. To the contrary, the relevant congressional report indicates that in enacting the 1976 Act, Congress intended to incorporate the “original work of authorship” standard “without change” from the previous 1909 Act.
將“作者身份”與人類創作視為同義的理解在版權法不斷演變的過程中始終如一。現行版權法的前身（1909年版權法）明確規定，只有“人”才能根據該法“為其作品獲得版權”。[9]因此，1909年法案將版權明確限於人類創作的作品。同時，也沒有證據表明國會意圖在現行版權法中改變這一長期以來的標準。相反，相關的國會報告表明，在制定1976年法案時，國會意圖“無變更”地引入前1909年法案中的“原創著作”標準。
The human authorship requirement has also been consistently recognized by the Supreme Court when called upon to interpret the copyright law. As already noted, in Sarony, the Court’s recognition of the copyrightability of a photograph rested on the fact that the human creator, not the camera, conceived of and designed the image and then used the camera to capture the image. See Sarony, 111 U.S. at 60.
最高法院在解釋版權法時，也一直一致認可人類作者身份的要求。如前所述，在Sarony案中，法院對攝影作品可版權性的認可基於如下事實：人類創作者使用相機捕捉影像，而非相機本身構思並設計了影像。
The photograph was “the product of the photographer’s intellectual invention,” and given “the nature of authorship,” was deemed “an original work of art . . . of which the photographer is the author.” Id. at 60–61. Similarly, in Mazer v. Stein, the Court delineated a prerequisite for copyrightability to be that a work “must be original, that is, the author’s tangible expression of his ideas.” 347 U.S. 201, 214 (1954). Goldstein v. California, too, defines “author” as “an ‘originator,’ ‘he to whom anything owes its origin,’” 412 U.S. at 561 (quoting Sarony, 111 U.S. at 58). In all these cases, authorship centers on acts of human creativity.
攝影作品是“攝影師智力創造的產物”，考慮到“作者身份的性質”，應被視為“原創藝術作品……其作者為攝影師”。 同樣，在Mazer v. Stein案中，法院認為版權化的先決條件是作品“必須是原創的，即作者對其思想的有形表達”。[11]在Goldstein v. California案中，“作者”被定義為“‘創造者’，‘一切事物的造就者’”。[12]在所有這些案件中，作者身份的核心都圍繞著人類創造的行為。
Accordingly, courts have uniformly declined to recognize copyright in works created absent any human involvement, even when, for example, the claimed author was divine. The Ninth Circuit, when confronted with a book “claimed to embody the words of celestial beings rather than human beings,” concluded that “some element of human creativity must have occurred in order for the Book to be copyrightable,” for “it is not creations of divine beings that the copyright laws were intended to protect.” Urantia Found. v. Kristen Maaherra, 114 F.3d 955, 958–59 (9th Cir. 1997) (finding that because the “members of the Contact Commission chose and formulated the specific questions asked” of the celestial beings, and then “selected and arranged” the resultant “revelations,” the Urantia Book was “at least partially the product of human creativity” and thus protected by copyright); see also Penguin Books U.S.A., Inc. v. New Christian Church of Full Endeavor, 96-cv-4126 (RWS), 2000 WL 1028634, at *2, 10–11 (S.D.N.Y. July 25, 2000) (finding a valid copyright where a woman had “filled nearly thirty stenographic notebooks with words she believed were dictated to her” by a “‘Voice’ which would speak to her whenever she was prepared to listen,” and who had worked with two human co-collaborators to revise and edit those notes into a book, a process which involved enough creativity to support human authorship); Oliver v. St. Germain Found., 41 F. Supp. 296, 297, 299 (S.D. Cal. 1941) (finding no copyright infringement where plaintiff claimed to have transcribed “letters” dictated to him by a spirit named Phylos the Thibetan, and defendant copied the same “spiritual world messages for recordation and use by the living” but was not charged with infringing plaintiff’s “style or arrangement” of those messages). Similarly, in Kelley v. Chicago Park District, the Seventh Circuit refused to “recognize copyright” in a cultivated garden, as doing so would “press too hard on the basic principle” that “authors of copyrightable works must be human.” 635 F.3d 290, 304–06 (7th Cir. 2011). The garden “owed its form to the forces of nature,” even if a human had originated the plan for the “initial arrangement of the plants,” and as such lay outside the bounds of copyright. Id. at 304. Finally, in Naruto v. Slater, the Ninth Circuit held that a crested macaque could not sue under the Copyright Act for the alleged infringement of photographs this monkey had taken of himself, for “all animals, since they are not human” lacked statutory standing under the Act. 888 F.3d 418, 420 (9th Cir. 2018). While resolving the case on standing grounds, rather than the copyrightability of the monkey’s work, the Naruto Court nonetheless had to consider whom the Copyright Act was designed to protect and, as with those courts confronted with the nature of authorship, concluded that only humans had standing, explaining that the terms used to describe who has rights under the Act, like “‘children,’ ‘grandchildren,’ ‘legitimate,’ ‘widow,’ and ‘widower,’ all imply humanity and necessarily exclude animals.” Id. at 426. Plaintiff can point to no case in which a court has recognized copyright in a work originating with a non-human.
滾動檢視
因此，各法院一致拒絕承認沒有任何人類參與創作作品的版權，例如，第九巡回法庭在審查一本“體現了天體生物而非人類言辭”的書時，得出結論：“作品必須包含某種人類創造的元素，才能獲得版權”，因為“版權法並不旨在保護神靈的創作”。[13]類似拒絕承認版權的情形還包括：記錄來自靈界的聲音的作品、人工栽培的花園等。同樣，動物也不能獲得版權並據此擁有訴訟資格（例如，猴子不能根據版權法對其拍攝的自畫像提起訴訟）。
Undoubtedly, we are approaching new frontiers in copyright as artists put AI in their toolbox to be used in the generation of new visual and other artistic works. The increased attenuation of human creativity from the actual generation of the final work will prompt challenging questions regarding how much human input is necessary to qualify the user of an AI system as an “author” of a generated work, the scope of the protection obtained over the resultant image, how to assess the originality of AI-generated works where the systems may have been trained on unknown pre-existing works, how copyright might best be used to incentivize creative works involving AI, and more.
無疑，隨著藝術家透過人工智慧創造新的視覺和其他藝術作品，我們正面臨一些前沿的版權問題。隨著人類創造性與最終作品的關聯逐漸減弱，一系列具有挑戰性的難題隨之浮現：多大程度的人類參與才能使人工智慧系統的使用者成為作品的“作者”？此類作品獲得的保護範圍如何？如何評估人工智慧作品的原創性（尤其是當系統可能基於未知的語料進行訓練時）？如何利用版權來激勵涉及人工智慧的創作？
See, e.g., Letter from Senators Thom Tillis and Chris Coons to Kathi Vidal, Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and Shira Perlmutter, Register of Copyrights and Director of the U.S. Copyright Office (Oct. 27, 2022), (requesting that the United States Patent and Trademark Office and the United States Copyright Office “jointly establish a national commission on AI” to assess, among other topics, how intellectual property law may best “incentivize future AI related innovations and creations”).
目前，已有參議員致函商業部智慧財產權副部長兼美國專利商標局局長及版權局局長，請求美國專利商標局和版權局“共同建立一個國家人工智慧委員會”，以評估以上事項。[14]
This case, however, is not nearly so complex. While plaintiff attempts to transform the issue presented here, by asserting new facts that he “provided instructions and directed his AI to create the Work,” that “the AI is entirely controlled by him,” and that “the AI only operates at his direction,” Pl.’s Mem. at 36–37—implying that he played a controlling role in generating the work—these statements directly contradict the administrative record. Judicial review of a final agency action under the APA is limited to the administrative record, because “it is black- letter administrative law that in an APA case, a reviewing court should have before it neither more nor less information than did the agency when it made its decision.” CTS Corp., 759 F.3d at 64 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Here, plaintiff informed the Register that the work was “created autonomously by machine,” and that his claim to the copyright was only based on the fact of his “ownership of the machine.” Application at 2. The Register therefore made her decision based on the fact the application presented that plaintiff played no role in using the AI to generate the work, which plaintiff never attempted to correct. See First Request for Reconsideration at 2 (“It is correct that the present submission lacks traditional human authorship—it was autonomously generated by an AI.”); Second Request for Reconsideration at 2 (same).
然而，本案並沒有上述問題那麼複雜。儘管原告辯稱他“提供了指示並指導人工智慧創作了該作品”、“人工智慧完全由他控制”，並且“人工智慧僅在他的指示下操作”。根據《行政程式法》（APA），對最終行政行為的司法審查僅限於行政記錄，因為“在涉及APA案件中，審查法院所依據的資訊不應多於或少於行政機構在作出決定時所掌握的資訊。”本案中，原告告知註冊官，該作品“由機器自主創造”，並且他對版權的主張僅基於他對機器的“所有權”。因此，註冊官的決定是基於原告在使用人工智慧生成作品上沒有發揮任何作用，而原告從未在這一方面進行辯解。
Plaintiff’s effort to update and modify the facts for judicial review on an APA claim is too late. On the record designed by plaintiff from the outset of his application for copyright registration, this case presents only the question of whether a work generated autonomously by a computer system is eligible for copyright. In the absence of any human involvement in the creation of the work, the clear and straightforward answer is the one given by the Register: No.
而原告試圖更新和修改事實以進行訴訟已為時已晚。根據原告在申請版權註冊之初的記錄，本案僅涉及一個問題，即計算機系統自主生成的作品是否有資格獲得版權？當創作過程沒有任何人類參與時，註冊官給出了明確而直接的答案：沒有資格。
Given that the work at issue did not give rise to a valid copyright upon its creation, plaintiff’s myriad theories for how ownership of such a copyright could have passed to him need not be further addressed. Common law doctrines of property transfer cannot be implicated where no property right exists to transfer in the first instance. The work-for-hire provisions of the Copyright Act, too, presuppose that an interest exists to be claimed. See 17 U.S.C § 201(b) (“In the case of a work made for hire, the employer . . . owns all of the rights comprised in the copyright.”).3 Here, the image autonomously generated by plaintiff’s computer system was never eligible for copyright, so none of the doctrines invoked by plaintiff conjure up a copyright over which ownership may be claimed.
鑑於該作品在創作時未產生有效的版權，原告提出的關於如何將該版權轉移給他的各種理論則無需進一步討論。在不存在可轉讓的財產權的情況下，普通法財產轉移原則無法適用。版權法的僱傭作品條款也以存在可主張的權益為前提（17 U.S.C. § 201(b)規定“在僱傭作品的情況下，僱主……擁有版權所涵蓋的所有權利”）。因此，由原告的計算機系統自主生成的影像從未具備獲得版權的資格，原告援引的任何理由都無法產生可主張所有權的版權。
四、案件評析
本案是人工智慧生成作品是否具有可版權性的的里程碑案件，法官Beryl A. Howell在判決中認為，美國版權局拒絕為沒有人類參與創作的人工智慧作品登記的行為是正確的。法院認為，人類創造力是可版權性的必要條件，例如攝影師在拍攝照片時傾注了自身的審美、構圖、佈景、引導等創作成分，而完全由人工智慧生成的作品則缺乏人類智力的貢獻。1976年版權法將“作者身份”限制為人類，是建立在幾個世紀長久以來的立法歷史基礎之上的。在以往的判例中，法院一致拒絕非人類作品的版權權利，例如各種‘神明’被剝奪版權權利的案例，以及“猴子自拍案”。本案中，原告也無法提出法院承認非人類作品版權的任何案例。
法院提到，“多少人力投入才能使人工智慧系統的使用者成為生成作品的‘作者’，這是一個具有挑戰性的問題”。美國版權局在 2023 年 3 月出臺了一份指導意見[15]，根據該指導意見，版權局將根據逐案調查的方式評估包括人工智慧生成作品在內的註冊申請。在這種調查中，如果一部作品的“傳統作者要素”是由機器完成的，那麼該作品就不屬於人類作者作品，商標局將不會對其進行登記。例如，當人工智慧僅收到人類的提示，並響應提示，生成複雜的書面、視覺或音樂作品時，“傳統作者要素”是由技術而不是人類使用者決定和執行的。使用者對系統如何闡釋指令並生成內容並不具有最終的控制力，因此，該輸出結果並非使用者創作的成果。有學者指出，使用者對輸出內容的預見性是判斷其貢獻的重要因素。在“輸入指令—生成內容”的“單回合”暗箱週期中，使用者“動口不動手”，無法事先預見AI輸出的大致內容，而是任由AI系統隨機輸出符合使用者提示詞文字要求的具體表達，然後從中挑選可能中意的初稿方案。[16]使用者在這種“單回合”模式中缺乏獨創性貢獻。實踐中，AI 使用者可能在以下三個方面作出貢獻：選定 AI 輸出的初始內容；指引並選定 AI 後續輸出的內容；“直接上手”改變 AI 輸出內容。然而，也有學者認為，在“多回合”模式中，使用者仍可能無法透過提示詞決定人工智慧生成的內容，人工智慧的演算法與所受的資料訓練仍對結果具有重要影響。[17]
（圖片來源於網路）
與首例涉及AI繪畫大模型訓練著作權侵權案的對比分析
北京網際網路法院審理的(2023)京0491民初11279號案是我國認可人工智慧生成內容的可版權性的首例案件。該案中，原告透過開源軟體Stable Diffusion生成的圖片《春風送來了溫柔》，被告未經許可使用該圖片後，原告起訴被告侵犯其署名權與資訊網路傳播權。法院主要從“獨創性”與“智力成果”兩方面分析該作品是否構成我國著作權法上的“作品”。
根據我國著作權法第三條規定，“作品”需滿足如下要件：1.是否屬於文學、藝術和科學領域內；2.是否具有獨創性；3.是否具有一定的表現形式；4.是否屬於智力成果。本案案涉作品顯然屬於藝術領域，且具有一定的表現形式，已具備了要件1和要件3。
法院認為，案涉圖片具有獨創性。通常來講，“獨創性”要求作品由作者獨立完成，並體現出作者的個性化表達。人們利用 Stable Diffusion 類模型生成圖片時，其所提出的需求與他人越具有差異性，對畫面元素、佈局構圖描述越明確具體，越能體現出人的個性化表達。本案中，法院認為案涉圖片從兩個方面體現了獨創性。一方面，從涉案圖片生成過程來看，原告對於人物及其呈現方式等畫面元素透過提示詞進行了設計，對於畫面佈局構圖等透過引數進行了設定，體現了原告的選擇和安排。另一方面，原告透過輸入提示詞、設定相關引數，獲得了第一張圖片後，其繼續增加提示詞、修改引數，不斷調整修正，最終獲得了涉案圖片，這一調整修正過程亦體現了原告的審美選擇和個性判斷。
此外，法院認為案涉圖片屬於智力成果。從原告構思涉案圖片起，到最終選定涉案圖片止，這整個過程來看，原告進行了一定的智力投入，比如設計人物的呈現方式、選擇提示詞、安排提示詞的順序、設定相關的引數、選定哪個圖片符合預期等。
（圖片來源於網路）
綜上，法院認為，該作品屬於美術作品，應受到著作權法的保護。本案中使用Stable Diffusion模型的自然人是直接根據需要對該模型進行相關設定，並最終選定涉案圖片的人，涉案圖片是基於原告的智力投入直接產生，且體現出了原告的個性化表達，故該自然人是涉案圖片的作者，享有涉案圖片的著作權。
雖然中美兩個案件都指出可版權性的作品的作者必須為人類，但二者對人在創作中承擔角色的理解不同。北京網際網路法院認為，人工智慧本質上是用於創作的工具，不具有自由意志也不是法律主體，因此在人類與人工智慧之間不存在確定誰為作者的問題。判斷作品是否受版權保護的重點在於使用者輸入資訊是否體現了智力投入與獨創性，需要逐案判斷。而Howell法官認為，首先，作品具有可版權性的前提是擁有人類作者，因此本案泰勒的主張——該作品由人工智慧自主創造，他的版權權利僅基於他對人工智慧系統的所有權——無法成立。其次，人類作者對作品的貢獻與控制程度決定該作品是否具有可版權性，也就是說，如果人類貢獻不滿足最低限度，則該作品不受版權保護。然而，法院未明確該“最低限度”的具體標準。
在兩個案件中，法院都提到了版權保護激勵創作這一重要立法目的，不同之處在於，Howell法官認為非人類創作者無需此種激勵，而我國法院則認為這一目的仍然適用因為創作者是自然人。北京網際網路法院認為，技術越發展，工具越智慧，人的投入就越少，但是這並不影響我們繼續適用著作權制度來鼓勵作品的創作。法院將人類使用人工智慧進行創作的行為與為委託他人創作進行類比，指出其不同在於受託人有自己的意志，從而可以進行取捨與判斷；而前者仍是“人利用工具創作”這一本質。因此，整個創作過程中進行智力投入的是人而非人工智慧模型。認定人工智慧受到著作權法的保護將有助於激勵人們使用新工具創作，從而實現著作權的最終目的。
註釋
判決連結：
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-dcd-1_22-cv-01564/pdf/USCOURTS-dcd-1_22-cv-01564-0.pdf
註釋：
[1] Fourth Estate v. Public Benefit Corporation v. Wall- Street.com, LLC, 139 S. Ct. 881, 887 (2019); 17 U.S.C. § 102(a)
[2] 17 U.S.C. §§ 410(a), 411(a); Unicolors v. H&M Hennes & Mauritz, L.P., 142 S. Ct. 941, 944–45 (2022)
[3] Fourth Estate, 139 S. Ct. at 887
[4] 17 U.S.C. § 102(a)
[5] Sarony, 111 U.S. at 59
[6] 17 U.S.C. § 102(a)
[7] 17 U.S.C.§ 101
[8] Author, MERRIAM-WEBSTER UNABRIDGED DICTIONARY, https://unabridged.merriam-webster.com/unabridged/author (last visited Aug. 18, 2023); Author, OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY, https://www.oed.com/dictionary/author_n (last visited Aug. 10, 2023).
[9] 1909年3月4日法案，第320章，第9、10節，35 Stat. 1075, 1077
[10] Sarony, 111 U.S. at 60-61
[11] 347 U.S. 201, 214 (1954)
[12] 412 U.S. at 561 (quoting Sarony, 111 U.S. at 58).
[13] Urantia Found. v. Kristen Maaherra, 114 F.3d 955, 958–59 (9th Cir. 1997)
[14] https://www.copyright.gov/laws/hearings/Letter-to- USPTO-USCO-on-National-Commission-on-AI-1.pdf
[15] https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/03/16/2023-05321/copyright-registration-guidance-works-containing-material-generated-by-artificial-intelligence
[16] 崔國斌.人工智慧生成物中使用者的獨創性貢獻[J].中國版權,2023,(06):15-23.
[17] 朱閣,崔國斌,王遷,等.人工智慧生成的內容（AIGC）受著作權法保護嗎[J].中國法律評論,2024,(03):1-28.
Author, MERRIAM-WEBSTER UNABRIDGED DICTIONARY, https://unabridged.merriam-webster.com/unabridged/author (last visited Aug. 18, 2023); Author, OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY, https://www.oed.com/dictionary/author_n (last visited Aug. 10, 2023).