I. General information
Date of Judgement: 11.10.2023
Issuing Authority: the Prague Municipal Court
Category: Copyright – Copyright protection & infringement
Plaintiff/Appellant: S. Š. vs Defendant/Respondent: TAUBEL LEGAL
Keyworks: AI; copyright protection; human creativity; Czech Republic
II. Dispute
Plaintiff: S. Š., an individual, filed a lawsuit against TAUBEL LEGAL, advokátní kancelář s.r.o.
Defendant: TAUBEL LEGAL, a law firm in the Czech Republic.
The plaintiff requested the court to recognize his copyright in an AI-generated photograph and demanded that the defendant remove the work from their website and cease all copyright infringement.
The disputed work is an image created by artificial intelligence based on the plaintiff's instructions, depicting two people signing a contract in an office environment.
III. Legal basis
Article 2(1) of the Czech Copyright Act: Only creative works that are the result of the intellectual activity of a natural person are protected.
Article 5(1) of the Czech Copyright Act: The author is the natural person who directly created the work.
Article 40(1) of the Czech Copyright Act: The author has the right to claim authorship, prevent infringement, or demand the removal of infringing content.
IV. Judgement
The court rejected all of the plaintiff's claims, reasoning that:
✅ An AI-generated work is not a copyrighted work under the Czech Copyright Act because it lacks human creativity.
✅ The plaintiff cannot be recognized as the author because the AI created the photograph, not a human.
✅ The order for removal and prevention of infringement was rejected because the plaintiff does not have valid copyright to request such measures.
✅ There was no award of legal costs because the defendant did not incur significant legal expenses.
V. Remarks
This decision reflects the view that copyright only applies to works that demonstrate human creativity and personality. If a work is created entirely by AI without significant human guidance or creative input, it will not be considered a copyrighted work.
However, the court also left open the possibility that in the future, if there is evidence of significant human creative contribution in the process of creating an AI work, copyright may be considered. This opens a discussion about the level and form of human contribution necessary for an AI work to be protected by copyright.
