The D.C. Circuit held that the Copyright Act requires a human author, foreclosing registration of a work generated autonomously by an AI system — and the Supreme Court has now declined to disturb that conclusion.
In Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org (2020), a divided Supreme Court held that the annotations in Georgia's official annotated code are uncopyrightable government edicts because they are authored by legislators acting as legislators.
In Star Athletica v. Varsity Brands (2017), the Supreme Court replaced a tangle of separability tests with a single statutory inquiry, holding that surface decorations on cheerleading uniforms can be copyrighted as pictorial works.
In Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service (1991), the Supreme Court held that a garden-variety white-pages directory lacked the 'modicum of creativity' the Constitution requires, burying the 'sweat of the brow' doctrine for good.
