Chinese courts have been handing down a series of judgments related to generative artificial intelligence, indicating how Beijing views the technology and aims to take the lead in setting standards.
In April, a Beijing court made China’s first ruling on a person’s right to their voice. A voice actor had sued several companies for AI-replicated voice infringement. The court found that some of the companies had indeed infringed on the plaintiff’s rights and ordered them to pay RMB 250,000 (USD 35,000) in damages.
China’s Civil Code already included protections for one’s own voice, but this was the first decision applied to AI.
Concerns over AI-generated voices are far from unique to China. In the US, actress Scarlett Johansson complained that the voice function of OpenAI’s ChatGPT sounded “eerily similar” to her. The company ultimately stopped using the voice.
In Japan, “AI covers” that generate digital versions of voice actors and singers without permission are rampant. The government has begun to create rules, but the debate over the rights to AI-generated voices has only just started.
Chinese courts, meanwhile, have been setting other precedents.
In February, a court in Guangzhou found that the operator of a generative AI service that allows users to create images resembling the popular Japanese character Ultraman had infringed on copyrights and breached its duty of care.
The judgment was based on the “Interim Measures for the Management of Generative Artificial Intelligence Services,” which came into force in August 2023 as the world’s first law to comprehensively regulate generative AI.
In another landmark AI-related intellectual property case, a Beijing court in November 2023 recognized the copyright of AI-created images themselves.
An individual plaintiff had posted an image of a woman titled “A gentle spring breeze” on a social network, after creating it with a generative AI service that turns commands into pictures. Then, another person posted it without the plaintiff’s permission. The court decided that the plaintiff held the copyright of the image and ordered the defendant to pay RMB 500 (USD 70) in damages.
The judges reasoned that the image had been generated through the creativity of the plaintiff’s prompts.
Conversely, last year, a US court ruled that AI artwork was not eligible for copyright registration. The conflicting rulings underscore that the global debate over how to treat images and other work produced by AI is heating up.
Takashi Nakazaki, a Japanese attorney who specializes in AI-related law, said that, in Europe, “the direction of the discussion is not clear.” In Japan, the copyrightability of a work is determined by factors such as the content of the instructions.
Worldwide, there are over 1,000 rules regarding AI, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), but many of the discussions are still in their infancy. With many countries keen to shape AI standards to their benefit, Chinese courts’ active rulings and the government’s rush to develop laws have “become impossible to ignore,” said Yoshifumi Onodera, a Japanese lawyer versed in Chinese law.
There is little doubt about China’s determination to win the AI race. The government and private companies are working together to develop the technology. According to a survey published by Stanford University in April, Chinese companies and other entities held 61.1% of the world’s AI patents filed in 2022, well ahead of the US, at 20.9%.
China seeks not only to produce the technology but to harness it for practical use. The 14th five-year plan announced by the Chinese government for the period from 2021–2025 calls for the “integration” of digital technologies such as AI with society. Generative AI is already spreading in all kinds of industries, from inspections of automobile parts to the creation of study plans for cram schools, according to Li Zhihui, an expert at Japan’s Nomura Research Institute who monitors AI technology in China.
Li suggested the court cases are a reflection of this growing enthusiasm. “The social implementation of generative AI is progressing rapidly, and legal issues are also becoming apparent,” Li said.
This article first appeared on Nikkei Asia. It has been republished here as part of 36Kr’s ongoing partnership with Nikkei.