The US Copyright Office didn't pull that AI comic's copyright after all

The question of who actually owns AI-generated artwork just triggered a bureaucratic scare inside the US Copyright Office.

Kris Kashtanova made waves after securing a copyright registration for Zarya Of The Dawn, a graphic novel illustrated using Midjourney. The application was filed early last year and approved in September, making it a landmark moment that led many to believe human creators could protect AI-assisted work.

Then came the panic. On Monday, the Copyright Office's public registry abruptly showed Kashtanova's registration as canceled, sparking speculation that officials had quietly revoked it after launching an inquiry. But the agency quickly clarified: it was merely a software glitch caused by an interoperability issue in a new catalog system being piloted. The official record in the Voyager catalog remains active, and the investigation is still ongoing.

Two thousand images and a two-week crunch

The central legal debate hinges on whether human prompt engineering and curation meet the threshold of authorship.

US law currently only protects works produced by human authors, and the Copyright Office previously ruled that an AI system cannot be listed as an author. But Kashtanova argues that making the graphic novel required extensive human labor.

The project took two weeks and required generating more than 2,000 images, which Kashtanova then edited in Photoshop and organized into pages using Comic Life 3. As a former software engineer, Kashtanova insists the comic would not exist without direct human creative direction.

Van Lindberg, a partner at Taylor English representing Kashtanova, said the case presents the Copyright Office with its first real opportunity to evaluate AI-assisted art and define how much human input is required to qualify for protection.

Why it matters

This technical glitch exposed just how high the stakes are for anyone building a business on generative tools.

For artists, designers, and creative studios, the outcome dictates whether integrating Midjourney or Stable Diffusion into a production pipeline creates protectable intellectual property or completely forfeit ownership. If the final output is legally considered public domain, commercial enterprises will be reluctant to rely on AI for flagship products.

We think the case will force regulators to adopt a more nuanced middle ground. Simply typing a text prompt probably will not cut it, but complex arrangement, human scriptwriting, and extensive post-processing look much closer to traditional creative direction. The Copyright Office is walking a tightrope: opening the floodgates risks drowning the system in automated claims, while closing them entirely could push professionals to hide their AI workflows underground.