Beijing Court Sentences Four People for Infringing Copyright by Using AI
Published 18 June 2025
Fei Dang
According to a report issued by the Legal Daily on June 13, 2025, the Beijing Tongzhou District Court delivered a judgment recognizing that “the defendant, an e-commerce company from Fuzhou was guilty of copyright infringement and sentenced to a fine of 100,000 yuan; the defendants, Luo XX, Yao XX, and two other people, were sentenced varying terms from one year and six months of imprisonment to probation for the crime of copyright infringement and fined from 60,000 yuan to 25,000 yuan.” This case is worth noticing on the ground that it is the first criminal case in Beijing in which artificial intelligence (AI) was used to infringe copyright and was upheld by a court decision.
It is reported that, on May 27, 2024, an individual named Zhang reported to the police that her artworks were stolen and used for profit on the Internet. Upon investigation, it was found that the said four natural person defendants conspired to download other people's artworks from Internet platforms and then use open source software to generate infringing images and make jigsaw puzzles for sale to the public between March and July 2024.
According to the People’s Procuratorate of Beijing Tongzhou District (the Procuratorate) that handled the prosecution of the case, since there has never been any criminal precedent involving AI-generated models for reference, this case has made “three breakthroughs” which are 1) affirming the criminal protection of the use of AI to infringe the copyright of illustration-type works of art; 2) criminalizing standard of deduction works that is blank in the judicial interpretation; and 3) determining standard of substantial similarity under AI software.”
It is introduced that the Procuratorate intervened in the case early in the investigation phase and ultimately added another five copyright owners of ten artworks to the criminal facts on the basis of the original case reporter upon mining and sorting out the seized evidence identification results, third-party e-commerce platform complaint records, and other massive electronic data. In addition, the Procuratorate also identified an e-commerce company in Fuzhou that was actually controlled by one of the natural person defendants and “participated in the criminal activities of reproducing and distributing other people's artworks which reflected the company’s willingness; the relevant illegal gains were used for the company's production and operation, but the company is not to implement the crime as the main activities, and then added the company as the unit crime in accordance with the law.”
It is worth mentioning that, since some of the involved artworks had borrowed material from the public domain, for example, certain works were recreated by adding other elements on the basis of earlier works. Although the relevant judicial interpretations did not stipulate whether such works constituted derivative works and whether the sales amount could all be included in the amount of the crime, it was ultimately concluded upon expert discussion that “given that the proportion of prior works in this case is large and the proportion of original works is small, it is not appropriate to assess the proportion of the crime, but it may be taken into consideration as a discretionary circumstance in determining the sentence,” according to the Procuratorate.
In addition, the Procuratorate tried for the first time to use the prosecutorial technology to assist the investigation and inspection to simulate the processing of the paintings and concluded that there was no originality by restoring the scene of the crime, plus using objective evidence such as records of communication between the defendants to lock in the defendants’ processing of the pictures based on the purpose of pursuing the “substantial sameness”, as well as visualization forms based on the perspective of a general observer by comparing the pictures.
At last, upon comparison, it recognized that the multiple puzzles sold by the defendants are consistent with the key elements of the artworks of the multiple copyright owners, which consisted of “substantial sameness,” and the said defendants had sold more than 3000 infringing puzzle products during the involved period, and the total amount of illegal operations amounted to more than RMB 270,000 yuan.
Due to the rapid development of AI technology, there are more and more abuses of AI in the field of intellectual property, which results in civil lawsuits. Nevertheless, as the first criminal case of copyright infringement by use of AI in Beijing, this case provides an important reference for similar cases in the future, as well as filling in blanks in terms of the legal application in this regard. For instance, the use of AI to adapt others’ artworks and then make them as puzzles for sale was recognized as “copying and selling unauthorized artworks of others for profit is an act of reproduction and distribution” under the Criminal Law. In a word, such a case does not only demonstrate the adaptability and flexibility of the law in responding to new types of crime but also guide the AI technology to develop on a compliance track by drawing a legal line for the application of AI.
It is reported that, on May 27, 2024, an individual named Zhang reported to the police that her artworks were stolen and used for profit on the Internet. Upon investigation, it was found that the said four natural person defendants conspired to download other people's artworks from Internet platforms and then use open source software to generate infringing images and make jigsaw puzzles for sale to the public between March and July 2024.
According to the People’s Procuratorate of Beijing Tongzhou District (the Procuratorate) that handled the prosecution of the case, since there has never been any criminal precedent involving AI-generated models for reference, this case has made “three breakthroughs” which are 1) affirming the criminal protection of the use of AI to infringe the copyright of illustration-type works of art; 2) criminalizing standard of deduction works that is blank in the judicial interpretation; and 3) determining standard of substantial similarity under AI software.”
It is introduced that the Procuratorate intervened in the case early in the investigation phase and ultimately added another five copyright owners of ten artworks to the criminal facts on the basis of the original case reporter upon mining and sorting out the seized evidence identification results, third-party e-commerce platform complaint records, and other massive electronic data. In addition, the Procuratorate also identified an e-commerce company in Fuzhou that was actually controlled by one of the natural person defendants and “participated in the criminal activities of reproducing and distributing other people's artworks which reflected the company’s willingness; the relevant illegal gains were used for the company's production and operation, but the company is not to implement the crime as the main activities, and then added the company as the unit crime in accordance with the law.”
It is worth mentioning that, since some of the involved artworks had borrowed material from the public domain, for example, certain works were recreated by adding other elements on the basis of earlier works. Although the relevant judicial interpretations did not stipulate whether such works constituted derivative works and whether the sales amount could all be included in the amount of the crime, it was ultimately concluded upon expert discussion that “given that the proportion of prior works in this case is large and the proportion of original works is small, it is not appropriate to assess the proportion of the crime, but it may be taken into consideration as a discretionary circumstance in determining the sentence,” according to the Procuratorate.
In addition, the Procuratorate tried for the first time to use the prosecutorial technology to assist the investigation and inspection to simulate the processing of the paintings and concluded that there was no originality by restoring the scene of the crime, plus using objective evidence such as records of communication between the defendants to lock in the defendants’ processing of the pictures based on the purpose of pursuing the “substantial sameness”, as well as visualization forms based on the perspective of a general observer by comparing the pictures.
At last, upon comparison, it recognized that the multiple puzzles sold by the defendants are consistent with the key elements of the artworks of the multiple copyright owners, which consisted of “substantial sameness,” and the said defendants had sold more than 3000 infringing puzzle products during the involved period, and the total amount of illegal operations amounted to more than RMB 270,000 yuan.
Due to the rapid development of AI technology, there are more and more abuses of AI in the field of intellectual property, which results in civil lawsuits. Nevertheless, as the first criminal case of copyright infringement by use of AI in Beijing, this case provides an important reference for similar cases in the future, as well as filling in blanks in terms of the legal application in this regard. For instance, the use of AI to adapt others’ artworks and then make them as puzzles for sale was recognized as “copying and selling unauthorized artworks of others for profit is an act of reproduction and distribution” under the Criminal Law. In a word, such a case does not only demonstrate the adaptability and flexibility of the law in responding to new types of crime but also guide the AI technology to develop on a compliance track by drawing a legal line for the application of AI.