On February 21, 2023, the US Copyright Office issued a decision on the graphic novel Zarya of the Dawn (Registration No. VAu001480196), created by the artist Kristina Kashtanova using the AI image generator Midjourney. The Office had originally registered the whole work, then reopened the question after learning that the illustrations were AI-generated. Its letter set out one of the first concrete US rulings on whether AI-generated images can be copyrighted.
The Office split the work. It concluded that “Ms. Kashtanova is the author of the Work’s text as well as the selection, coordination, and arrangement of the Work’s written and visual elements,” and that “that authorship is protected by copyright.” But it held that “the images in the Work that were generated by the Midjourney technology are not the product of human authorship.” Because the existing registration did not exclude the AI-generated content, the Office said it would cancel the original certificate and issue a new, narrower one covering only the human-authored material.
The reasoning turned on control. The Office found that a Midjourney user does not exercise enough control over the specific image the system produces from a text prompt for the output to count as the user’s own creative work - distinguishing the case from photography, where the photographer’s choices of composition and framing are protectable. The decision applied the long-standing requirement that copyright protects only works of human authorship.
Why business readers should care: Zarya of the Dawn established an early, practical line for businesses producing AI-assisted creative work: human-authored text, arrangement and selection can be registered, but purely AI-generated images generally cannot. It foreshadowed the broader US position later affirmed when the Supreme Court declined to revisit AI authorship in the case noted at thaler-scotus-cert-denied, and it remains a touchstone for how much human involvement is needed before AI output earns copyright.