The court’s decision upholding copyright in images generated through artificial intelligence, along with other recent cases related to AI, underscores the need to regulate the application of rapidly evolving technologies and sparked a debate.
The judgment handed down by the Beijing court was included in the capital’s annual judicial work report, which Kou Fan, president of the Beijing High People’s Court, submitted to the Beijing People’s Congress last week.
Kou said a landmark ruling by the Beijing Internet Court in late November set standards and market rules for new technologies.
In the first judgment of its kind in China, the court ruled that this image, generated by the text-to-image conversion software “Stable Diffusion”, is a work of art under copyright protection due to the originality and intellectual input of its human creator. He said it was a work of art.
Liu Bin, an intellectual property lawyer at Beijing Zhongwen Law Office, said that whether images or novels generated by AI are protected by copyright mainly depends on whether the content is full of creativity and originality. and that it needs to be analyzed on a case-by-case basis.
The Beijing lawsuit was brought in May last year after a man surnamed Li used an AI program to create a photo of a young woman of Asian descent and posted it on a popular Chinese social media platform, Xiaohongshu. .
Mr. Li claimed that a blogger named Liu used the image without permission in a post on Baidu-owned Chinese content sharing platform Baijiabao, and that Liu infringed the photo’s copyright, filing an Internet tribunal. appealed to.
After hearing the case, the court ruled in favor of Mr. Li, identified his AI-generated image as a work of art, issued a public apology to Mr. Liu, and awarded him 500 yuan ($70) in compensation. ) was ordered to be paid.
Judge Zhu Ge, who heard the case, said the ruling found that Mr. Li continually added prompts and repeatedly adjusted parameters to craft photographs that reflected his aesthetic choices and personal judgment. He said that the decision was made based on the method.
“In this case, granting legal status to generated AI content under certain conditions is aimed at encouraging people to innovate with new technologies and fostering the development of this emerging industry.” she stated.
However, Zhu also emphasized that future copyright disputes related to AI-generated content should be determined on a case-by-case basis.
“With the rapid growth of AI, there are increasing issues surrounding AI-generated content,” Liu said.
“However, the current law does not have clear provisions on this point, so determining originality requires judges to spend more time thinking and studying,” he said. “Identification checks, both domestically and internationally, are a matter of judicial challenge, and legal professionals need to step up their efforts in related investigations and investigations.”
Cui Guobin, a law professor at Tsinghua University, said the court’s decision provides a reasonable solution to copyright disputes regarding AI-generated content in certain situations, and is important for future legal practice and academic research. He said that it has great reference value.
Hu Lin, an associate professor of law at Peking University, said the ruling provides protection for the resources and effort plaintiffs put into learning and using new technology.
“In other words, the court believes that by protecting content generated by AI software, we can encourage more people to apply similar technologies to their work and lives, further fostering social innovation and market development.” “It has become,” he said.
In addition to AI-related copyright disputes, several other controversies have also emerged as the technology has become more widely used in recent years.
In December, the Beijing Internet Court began hearing the country’s first case regarding the rights to AI-generated audio. It will be necessary to determine whether the imitation of a person’s voice using AI can be considered the person’s original voice, and whether the technology used in the process violates the right to that person’s voice. The verdict will be announced at a later date.
In a recent incident in Zhejiang province, police detained a group on suspicion of using AI to create around 20,000 fake videos to garner online views, earning more than 40,000 yuan.
In the United States, a fake online image of pop singer Taylor Swift recently set off alarms at the White House after a sexually explicit fake image of Swift went viral on social media last week. That includes one image shared on X (formerly Twitter) that was reportedly viewed 47 million times before the account was suspended.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Friday that the images were “alarming” and that Congress should take legislative action on the issue.
Mr. Liu, the Beijing lawyer, also urged the enactment of specific laws to regulate the application of AI technology, stressing the importance of striking a balance between technological development and rights protection.
Given the time it takes to legislate, he suggested that courts strengthen mediation in AI-related cases, saying, “Internet platforms also encourage users to identify or mitigate risks associated with the use of generative AI software early on. “We need to strengthen our technical means to make this possible.” .
