I. General information
Date of Judgement: 27.11.2023
Issuing Authority: Beijing Internet Court, China
Category: Copyright - Authorship of AI generated content
Plaintiff/Appellant: Mr. Li Yunkai
Defendant/Respondent: Mr. Liu
Keyworks: Authorship; AI; AI-generated artwork; Copyright Law; China
II. Dispute
Recognition of copyright for works created by artificial intelligence (AI).
The plaintiff, Mr. Li Yunkai, used the AI software Stable Diffusion to create an image of a young Asian girl and posted it on the social media platform Xiaohongshu. Mr. Li discovered that the defendant, a blogger named Liu, had used this image without permission and posted it on the Baijiahao platform owned by Baidu. Mr. Li sued Mr. Liu, alleging copyright infringement of the image he created.
III. Legal basis
Copyright Law of the People's Republic of China
IV. Judgement
Copyright Law of the People's Republic of China The court recognized that the image created by AI is copyrightable because the image reflects the initial intellectual investment of a human (Mr. Li) and meets the originality criterion.
The court ruled that Mr. Liu must publicly apologize and compensate Mr. Li 500 yuan (approximately US$70)
V. Remarks
Copyright for AI-generated works may be recognized in this country, but may not be recognized in other countries. (Example: Thaler v. Perlmutter (USA), in which Thaler wanted AI to be recognized as the author – which was denied.)
