Case 1:22-cv-01564-BAH Document 24 Filed 08/18/23 Page 4 of 15
Copyright Office Practices § 306 (3d ed. 2017)). Plaintiff made a second request for reconsideration along the same lines as his first, see id., Ex. G, Second Request for Reconsideration at 2, ECF No. 13-7, and the Copyright Office Review Board affirmed the denial of registration, agreeing that copyright protection does not extend to the creations of non-human entities, Final Refusal Letter at 4, 7.
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). See Compl. ¶¶ 62–66, ECF No. 1. 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. See Pl.’s Mem. at 13; Defs.’ Mem. Supp. Cross-Mot. Summ. J. & Opp’n Pl.’s Mot. Summ. J. (“Defs.’ Opp’n”) at 7, ECF No. 17. Those motions are now ripe for resolution. See Defs.’ Reply Supp. Cross-Mot. Summ. J. (“Defs.’ Reply”), ECF No. 21.
II. LEGAL STANDARD
A. Administrative Procedure Act
The APA provides for judicial review of any “final agency action for which there is no other adequate remedy in a court,” 5 U.S.C. § 704, and “instructs a reviewing court to set aside agency action found to be ‘arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law,’” Cigar Ass’n of Am. v. FDA, 964 F.3d 56, 61 (D.C. Cir. 2020) (quoting 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A)). This standard “‘requires agencies to engage in reasoned decisionmaking,’ and … to reasonably explain to reviewing courts the bases for the actions they take and the conclusions they reach.” Brotherhood of Locomotive Eng’rs & Trainmen v. Fed. R.R. Admin.,
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