Three Years Later, The Copyright Office Is Still Wrong (And Now Founders Are Paying For It)

In 2024, I wrote that the Copyright Office's position on AI-generated works was flawed and would not survive contact with the actual Burrow-Giles test. Three years later, the Office has hardened that position into formal policy, the D.C. Circuit has blessed it, and the Supreme Court has refused to look at it. The reasoning is still wrong for the same reasons. What's new is who's paying for it: the AI-native founders building real businesses on tools the Office now tells them they can't own the output of — and a constitutional bargain that's being broken on both ends.