The present contribution provides an overview of two of the most pressing legal questions concerning IP law, authorship of AI-generated works and copyright infringement. It does so through the lens of US copyright law, since US courts have dealt with the highest number of AI art cases, and many AI systems manufacturers and suppliers are based in the US.

On February 21th, 2023, the United States Copyright Office (USCO) cancelled the registration certificate previously issued to Ms. Kristina Kashtanova for the “comic book” entitled “Zarya of the Dawn”, considering that the images in the comic book are not the product of human authorship – since they were generated by an AI system – Midjourney – and were therefore not copyrightable.