Joanne Zhang

A Chinese court finds that AI-generated images are not protected by copyright: the Zhangjiagang People’s Court and the ‘butterfly chairs’ case

By Edward Chatterton & Joanne Zhang on July 24, 2025

We previously wrote about a Chinese court decision that protected the copyright of AI-generated images in the ‘half heart’ case. However, in a recent case, the Zhangjiagang People’s Court (in China’s Jiangsu province) denied copyright protection for AI-generated works.

In the new ‘butterfly chairs’ case, the plaintiff used the AI…

Another Chinese court finds that AI-generated images can be protected by copyright: the Changshu People’s Court and the ‘half heart’ case

By Edward Chatterton, Joanne Zhang & Liam Blackford on March 21, 2025

Posted in Artificial Intelligence, Copyrights, Intellectual Property, Social Media & Social Networking

On 7 March 2025, the Changshu People’s Court (in China’s Jiangsu province) announced that it had recently concluded a case on the topical issue of whether AI-generated works can be protected by copyright. In the case, a plaintiff surnamed Lin used the AI tool Midjourney to create an image, and…