Shanghai Court Rules User Liable for AI-Generated Copyright Infringement
Shanghai's first court ruling on AI model copyright infringement found a user liable for training and publishing an unauthorized AI model of the character Medusa from the anime "Battle Through the Heavens." The court ruled the user infringed the copyright owner's reproduction and information network transmission rights, while finding the AI platform not liable for promptly removing the model after notice.
What happened
User Li Mou extracted more than twenty images of the character Medusa from the anime "Battle Through the Heavens" and used the AI platform's 'train LoRA' function to create two Medusa LoRA models, which were published to the user's account after passing platform moderation.
Other users could use the published Medusa LoRA models to generate images by entering different prompts, producing images identical or substantially similar to the original Medusa character image.
Reported impact
The copyright owner of the Medusa character, Shanghai Xuantian Entertainment Information Technology Co., Ltd., claimed the user infringed the reproduction right, adaptation right, and information network transmission right of the Medusa character image.
Index analysis
The court found the user's conduct infringed the copyright owner's reproduction right and information network transmission right by reproducing the original creative expression of Medusa and making the character image available to the public through the AI platform.
The court held that AI-generated images do not constitute copyrightable works under copyright law, so the user did not infringe the adaptation right.
The court ruled the AI platform provided neutral LoRA technology, set up complaint and content review mechanisms, and fulfilled notice-and-takedown obligations by removing all Medusa models after receiving the complaint and updating content filtering keywords, thus incurring no liability.
Governance controls
The AI platform set up complaint and reporting mechanisms and content review procedures for user-generated models.
Upon receiving the lawsuit, the platform immediately removed all Medusa LoRA models, updated keyword filters in its moderation system, and notified overseas AI platforms sharing data.
Classification
Sources and evidence
Sources not yet published
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