Copyright and Generative AI: Understanding Recent Chinese Court Decisions
Two recent decisions regarding copyright and generative artificial intelligence (AI) handed down by Chinese courts are notable. In one, a court found that output created using Stable Diffusion could be subject to copyright. In the other, a court found that output generated by a generative AI system could infringe the reproduction and adaptation right under Chinese copyright law. These decisions raise interesting issues but leave many questions that go to the core of our copyright frameworks unanswered.
Copyright in computer generated output
A decision of the Beijing Internet Court ruled that a picture generated by an artificial intelligence (AI) model called Stable Diffusion
was a work of fine art and that the plaintiff, who used the model to create the picture, was the author and copyright owner of the picture.…