Legal Perspectives on Copyright Ownership of Generative AI Works 2025-08-03 by AI Agent 1. Introduction As we enter 2025, with the rapid development of various artificial intelligence tools, generative AI “works” are emerging like mushrooms after rain, leading to frequent disputes in practice. Due to the lack of clear applicable rules, related issues have sparked widespread discussion in practice. This article analyzes the viewpoint on the copyright ownership of generative AI works based on a ruling case from the Beijing Internet Court (2023) Jing 0491 Minchu 11279. 2. Basic Facts The plaintiff used AI software to generate images by inputting prompts and published them on a platform. Later, the plaintiff discovered that a Baijiahao account published an article using that image as an illustration, which the plaintiff believed infringed upon their legitimate rights and interests, thus initiating a lawsuit. 3. Ruling Reasoning (Excerpt) From the moment the plaintiff conceived the image in question to the final selection of the image, the entire process shows that the plaintiff made a certain intellectual investment, such as designing the presentation of characters, selecting prompts, arranging the order of prompts, setting relevant parameters, and determining which image meets expectations, etc. The image in question reflects the plaintiff’s intellectual contribution, thus meeting the requirement of “intellectual achievement”. The plaintiff designed elements such as characters and their presentation through prompts, and set the layout and composition through parameters, reflecting the plaintiff’s choices and arrangements. On the other hand, after obtaining the first image by inputting prompts and setting relevant parameters, the plaintiff continued to add prompts, modify parameters, and continuously adjusted and corrected, ultimately obtaining the image in question. This adjustment process also reflects the plaintiff’s aesthetic choices and personal judgments. In court, the plaintiff generated different images by changing individual prompts or parameters, indicating that different individuals can input new prompts and set new parameters to create different content using this model. Therefore, the image in question is not a “mechanical intellectual achievement”. In the absence of contrary evidence, it can be concluded that the image in question was independently completed by the plaintiff, reflecting the plaintiff’s personalized expression. 4. Analysis To clarify the ownership of copyright, a core issue must be resolved, namely what constitutes a “work”. If a result cannot be called a work, it does not fall under the protection of copyright, such as mere facts, common formulas, or simply pieced-together materials. The current law in our country defines a work in Article 3 of the Copyright Law: A work referred to in this law is an intellectual achievement that is original and can be expressed in a certain form in the fields of literature, art, and science. According to this article, a work must meet at least two core elements: it must be original and it must be an intellectual achievement. Originality means that the result is independently created by the author and reflects the author’s personalized expression. An intellectual achievement means that the result requires intellectual input from a natural person; for example, certain animals can also paint, but their “paintings” do not qualify as intellectual achievements. From the above ruling case, we find that under current effective laws, whether generative AI works belong to intellectual achievements requires a comprehensive judgment of whether the inputter’s choices and arrangements of input instructions can represent the inputter’s intellectual investment and personalized expression. However, in practice, this judgment tests the professional quality and life experience of a judge. 5. Insights With breakthroughs in AI technology, more and more legal issues need to be established and improved. In addition to copyright ownership and originality determination discussed in this article, issues such as the authorship of AI works, whether AI-generated content constitutes infringement, the division of liability for infringement when large models create works that infringe on third-party rights using training data, how to ensure the fairness of algorithmic decisions, and how to protect personal privacy, etc., are urgent. For creators using generative AI tools, it is essential to retain records of the creative process, such as drafts, design sketches, modification logs, and generation records, to provide evidence of their intellectual input and personalized expression in case of related disputes. While artificial intelligence facilitates our work and life, it also creates numerous challenges, as Engels said, “Everything is in motion, change, production, and disappearance.” Much of what we gain or lose today does not entirely depend on ourselves, and what we can do in the future is just to find tranquility amidst this change and constancy.
