According to a report by the Legal Daily, Suzhou Intermediate People's Court in Jiangsu Province recently issued a final ruling in a copyright infringement dispute involving AI-generated images. The court ruled that the series of "Phantom Wing Transparent Art Chair" images generated by plaintiff Feng Moumou using AI software did not constitute a work in the sense of copyright law, thus rejecting his lawsuit against defendants Zhu Moumou and others.
Plaintiff Feng Moumou created a series of art chair images using an AI image generation software and posted them on social media seeking mass production collaborations. Defendant Zhu Moumou contacted the plaintiff for collaboration but was refused. Subsequently, Zhu Moumou published and promoted their butterfly chair on social media. Feng Moumou believed that this product and its promotional images were substantially similar to his AI-generated works and filed a lawsuit demanding that the defendants cease infringement and pay compensation of 200,000 yuan.
The court held that to prove AI-generated images constitute a work, the user must provide original records of the creation process to demonstrate that they adjusted, selected, and refined the initial image by adding prompts, modifying parameters, etc., and made personalized choices and substantial contributions to the image's layout, proportions, perspective, composition, color, or lines. Because Feng Moumou failed to provide corresponding original records such as creation flowcharts, his selections and modifications lacked evidentiary support, making it difficult to demonstrate his intellectual input. Furthermore, Feng Moumou admitted that he could not reproduce the exact same generation process for the images in question, making it difficult for the court to determine that he made specific personalized and substantial contributions.
Therefore, the court found that the evidence presented by Feng Moumou was insufficient, the images in question did not meet the constituent elements of a work, and could not be considered a work. The court ultimately dismissed his lawsuit. This case marks the first effective ruling in China that AI-generated images do not constitute a work, sparking widespread discussion on the copyright ownership of AI-generated content.
