Beijing Internet Court

Copyright protection of photos created with the help of generative artificial intelligence (AI)

Beijing Internet Court – A Civil Judgment (2023) Jing 0491 Min Chu No. 11279 (2023) „Little Red book – Li v Liu“ 

Main findings (non-official):

Articles 3, 10, 11(1), 53 and 54 Copyright Law of the People’s Republic of China
1. Photos are protected by copyright as works of visual art (photographic works) or as adaptations thereof if they are original intellectual achievements expressed in a specific form.

2. If generative AI is used as a tool in the creative process, the result achieved (here: a photograph) can enjoy copyright protection if the aforementioned conditions are met by the design of the input (the prompt) and the setting of parameters, which is the case here. The fact that tools (here: the AI tool “Stable Diffusion”) are used does not conflict with this assumption.

3. The author of such an adaptation is the person who created it in the sense of the guiding principles as explained above.

4. The main purpose of copyright protection is to incentivize creativity.

5. The “distribution” of such a photo on the internet constitutes making it available to the public, which is reserved for the author. If this is carried out without crediting the author, also the moral rights of the author (right to being credited) are infringed.

6. In view of the infringement that has occurred, the claim for the publication of an ‘apology’ and the payment of compensation is justified. This can also be set by the court as a lump sum if it proves to be difficult to determine the actual damage suffered by the plaintiff, the profit made by the defendant, or an appropriate license fee.

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