Chinese Court Grants Copyright Protection for AI-written Article

Recently, the Shenzhen Nanshan District People’s Court (the Court) ruled in favour of Shenzhen Tencent Computer System Co Ltd (Tencent) in their claim for copyright infringement against the defendant with respect to an article written by Tencent’s artificial intelligence (AI) software, Dreamwriter.

On August 20, 2019, Dreamwriter wrote a financial report outlining Shanghai’s index, foreign exchange and capital flows. The defendant copied the article to its website with the disclaimer “automatically written by Tencent Robot Dreamwriter.” The Court determined that the article’s form of expression had “certain originality”, therefore meeting the requirements of a written work. The defendant has already removed the article and was further required to pay a fine of 1,500 yuan.

In recent years, various jurisdictions have begun to discuss the impact AI may have on intellectual property. Last August, a call for expert and public comment was published by the US Patent and Trademark Office on the matter. The European Patent Office has also addressed applications where a machine was designated as an inventor. The Dreamwriter decision represents a notable milestone for the copyright protection of works created by artificial intelligence.

Summary By: Alessia Monastero