The federal backdrop remains unsettled. The Supreme Court denied certiorari in Thaler v. Perlmutter this spring, leaving the human-authorship requirement intact. The U.S. Copyright Office has consistently held that copyright protection requires human authorship. State lawmakers and legal observers warn that a patchwork of state-level ownership rules could trigger federal preemption challenges and create conflicting regimes across jurisdictions.
For practitioners, the immediate issue is legal uncertainty. Creators and companies using generative AI cannot yet rely on consistent ownership protections for their outputs. Any state law in this area faces vulnerability to preemption challenges, meaning the emerging state-by-state approach could be short-lived. The real pressure now falls on Congress and federal agencies to establish clear national rules before the landscape fragments further. Attorneys advising clients on AI-generated content should monitor both state legislative activity and any federal response.