On February 26, the Internet Court in Guangzhou issued a landmark ruling regarding generative AI services that infringe on third-party copyrights. A platform for Artificial Intelligence Generated Content (AIGC), which was not named, was found guilty of having produced an image resembling the well-known comic character Ultraman. The copyright owner, Tsuburaya Productions Co., Ltd., signed an authorization agreement with the plaintiff, Shanghai Xinchuanghua Culture Development Co., Ltd., transferring the exclusive copyright of the Ultraman series images to the plaintiff and granting them the right to enforce these rights. This is the first judgment worldwide against a platform using AI for image generation.
The court ruled that providers of generative AI services must take certain technical measures to prevent the creation of images that are substantially similar to the work of the copyright holder. Moreover, the platform should fulfil a reasonable duty of care – including clear labelling of creations, warning of potential risks, and establishing a complaint and reporting mechanism.
Under certain conditions, content generated by both end-users and model providers is protected by copyright. Whether content generated by AI service providers infringes copyrights is a practical question that courts must clarify. The Guangzhou Internet Court’s ruling provides a clear judicial answer to this question for the first time. It is an important step in clarifying the legal aspects of AI usage.
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China Intellectual Property Blog 