focusing on digital economy and artificial intelligence, beijing internet court is ready to empower and safeguard new quality productivity
2024-09-22
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recently, the beijing internet court reported a number of typical cases that serve to safeguard the development of new productivity. through the adjudication of these cases, the rights and obligations of all parties were promptly clarified, highlighting the efforts of the beijing internet court to strengthen judicial service guarantees in cutting-edge science and technology fields and continuously build momentum for the development of new productivity with high-quality justice. it also provides behavioral guidance for the healthy development of new business forms and technologies such as the digital economy and artificial intelligence on the track of the rule of law.
the data intellectual property registration certificate has evidentiary effect
the plaintiff, a technology company, spent a lot of manpower and financial resources to collect and record 1,505 hours of mandarin voice data and form a data set. in 2021, the plaintiff discovered that the defendant, who also provides data services in the field of artificial intelligence, illegally obtained the data, disseminated the data to the public on its official website, and allowed internet users to download it at will.
the plaintiff believes that the defendant and the plaintiff are both practitioners in the data processing industry and are in a competitive relationship with each other. the data involved in the case is a trade secret. the defendant illegally obtained, used, and provided the data involved in the case to others, which constitutes unfair competition.
after trial, the court determined that the "data intellectual property registration certificate" submitted by the plaintiff can prove that the data set in question was collected and held by the plaintiff, that is, the data intellectual property registration can serve as preliminary evidence that the plaintiff enjoys data property rights, and can also serve as preliminary evidence of its data collection behavior or the legal source of the data. as a technology company that provides data storage, annotation, and training services, the defendant directly disclosed a subset of the data set in question to internet users as the service content of its official website data product and provided a download link for users to use, which violated the integrity principle and business ethics of the data service industry, damaged the legitimate rights and interests of the plaintiff and consumers, and disrupted the competitive order of the data service market. therefore, the defendant was ordered to compensate the plaintiff for economic losses of 100,000 yuan and reasonable rights protection expenses of 2,300 yuan.
the judge said that data intellectual property rights are a type of data right that is currently being piloted for circulation and trading. the data intellectual property registration certificate obtained by the dataset involved in the case is of great significance. this certificate can not only serve as preliminary evidence to prove that the plaintiff enjoys the property interests related to the dataset involved in the case, but also as preliminary evidence of the legality of the dataset collection behavior or data source. the dataset involved in the case can improve the use value of the data by refining and integrating the original data, and processing the originally single and limited value fragmented data information through algorithm analysis, which has data property rights.
the ownership of ai-generated content requires case-by-case judgment
in another case, the plaintiff used the open source software stable diffusion to generate the pictures involved in the case by inputting prompt words and then posted them on a social platform. the defendant posted an article online that used the pictures involved as illustrations. the plaintiff believed that the defendant used the pictures without permission and cut off the plaintiff's signature watermark, causing relevant users to mistakenly believe that the defendant was the author of the work, which seriously infringed the plaintiff's right of signature and right of information network dissemination. he then sued the court for a public apology and compensation for economic losses.
after trial, the court determined that the plaintiff designed the characters and their presentation methods and other screen elements through prompt words, and set the layout and composition of the screen through parameters, which reflected the plaintiff's choice and arrangement. the plaintiff finally obtained the pictures involved by constantly modifying the prompt words and parameters, which reflected the plaintiff's personalized expression. therefore, the pictures involved have the "originality" requirement and should be recognized as works and protected by copyright law. the relevant copyrights should belong to the users of artificial intelligence. the defendant infringed the plaintiff's right to disseminate information on the internet and the right to sign the pictures involved, and should bear the tort liability. therefore, the defendant was ordered to apologize to the plaintiff and compensate the plaintiff li for economic losses of 500 yuan.
the beijing internet court believes that whether content generated by artificial intelligence constitutes a work requires case-by-case judgment and cannot be generalized. if the content generated by artificial intelligence meets the definition of a work, it should be recognized as a work and protected by copyright law. at the same time, if the content generated by artificial intelligence reflects the user's original intellectual input, the relevant copyright should generally belong to the artificial intelligence user.
this case, by recognizing the "work" attributes of ai-generated images and the "creator" status of users, is conducive to encouraging users' enthusiasm for creating works using ai tools, thereby achieving the inherent goal of copyright law to "incentivize the creation of works." it is conducive to promoting relevant entities to mark content generated using ai and thereby promote the implementation of regulatory laws and regulations and the protection of the public's right to know. it is conducive to protecting and strengthening the dominant position of humans in the development of artificial intelligence and promoting the innovative development and application of artificial intelligence technology.
creating an ai image of a natural person without consent constitutes infringement
the defendant, a certain artificial intelligence technology company, is the operator of a certain mobile phone accounting software. the name and avatar of the plaintiff he are preset in the accounting software for users to choose as the "ai companion". the artificial intelligence technology company also provides a "training" algorithm mechanism for ai characters, that is, users upload various interactive corpora such as text, portrait pictures, dynamic expressions, and some users participate in the review. the artificial intelligence technology company uses artificial intelligence to screen and classify to form character corpora. according to the chat scene and the personality of the virtual image, the software pushes "portrait emoticons" and "sultry words" related to users through intelligent algorithms or ai automatic replies, creating an experience of interacting with real people.
after trial, the court determined that a certain artificial intelligence technology company did not provide a simple content upload "channel" service, but organized and encouraged users to form infringing materials through rule setting and algorithm design, and jointly created virtual images with them and used them in user services. the company is no longer a neutral technical service provider, but should bear infringement liability as a network content service provider. the commercial use of he's name and portrait by a certain artificial intelligence technology company did not obtain he's permission, so it constituted an infringement of he's right to name and portrait. at the same time, the defendant's behavior also violated he's general personality rights. therefore, the defendant was ordered to publicly apologize to the plaintiff and compensate the plaintiff for mental damages of 20,000 yuan and economic losses of 183,000 yuan.
the beijing internet court pointed out that article 990 of the civil code of the people's republic of china clearly stipulates that in addition to specific personality rights, natural persons also enjoy other personality rights and interests arising from personal freedom and personal dignity. this actually clarifies that the personal interests arising from personal freedom and personal dignity are all the objects of personality rights. due to the lack of detailed definition standards, the system of personal rights and interests arising from personal freedom and personal dignity is an open system. the many personal interests involved in the virtual image in this case can be fully protected by citing this clause.
unauthorized "face-changing" infringes on personal information rights
without the plaintiff liao's authorization or consent, a certain technology and culture company used ai technology to remove the plaintiff's face from a series of videos and replaced it with a third-party face. it then made the processed videos into face-changing templates, uploaded them to the software involved in the case, provided them to users for paid use, and made profits from them. the plaintiff believed that the defendant violated his portrait rights and personal information rights, so he brought the case to court.
after trial, the court determined that the defendant removed the portrait, a core identifiable part, through technical means. the makeup, hairstyle, clothing and other elements retained in the template are essentially different from the personality elements inherent in natural persons, are not identifiable, and did not vilify, deface or forge the plaintiff's portrait, and did not constitute an infringement of the plaintiff's portrait rights. however, the defendant's behavior involves the processing of the plaintiff's personal information. the plaintiff's account description is marked with "not authorized to any paid software", and the defendant has no evidence to prove that it has obtained the plaintiff's consent, which constitutes an infringement of the plaintiff's personal information rights. therefore, the court ruled that the defendant apologized to the plaintiff in writing, compensated the plaintiff for mental damages of 500 yuan and economic losses of 1,500 yuan, and rejected the plaintiff's other claims.
the judge said that article 27 of the "personal information protection law of the people's republic of china" stipulates: "personal information processors may process personal information that individuals have disclosed on their own or that has been legally disclosed within a reasonable scope, except when the individual explicitly refuses. if the personal information processor processes publicly disclosed personal information and it has a significant impact on the rights and interests of individuals, it shall obtain the consent of the individual in accordance with the provisions of this law." the face-changing software operator uses the technology of deep synthesis of artificial intelligence to commercialize videos containing facial information, which may have a significant impact on personal rights and interests. taking into account the business model of the software involved and the way it handles personal information, from the perspective of guiding the standardized development of market entities, it should be determined that the processing behavior constitutes an infringement of personal information rights and interests without consent.
companies should obtain individual consent before sharing personal information
the plaintiff, lv, is a registered user of a car quotation software, and the defendant, an information technology company, is the operator of the software. the plaintiff claimed that when he was using the software involved in the case, a pop-up window popped up for the mercedes-benz e-class quotation, which stated in small gray font, "the dealer will call you to provide a quotation, please pay attention to answer the call." the plaintiff clicked the eye-catching "view now" button and found that the defendant had shared and transmitted the plaintiff's personal information, such as his mobile phone number, to the mercedes-benz dealer. in addition, the plaintiff also received marketing calls from buick and gac honda. the plaintiff believes that the defendant provided, shared, transmitted, and sold the plaintiff's personal information to third parties without his consent, infringing on his personal information rights.
after trial, the court determined that the software involved in the case informed users of the processing behavior of providing dealers with mobile phone numbers for price inquiries, and the user's choice of whether to use the "bottom price inquiry" function was decided by the user. therefore, the defendant's collection of the plaintiff's personal information and providing it to mercedes-benz car dealers had obtained the plaintiff's separate consent and did not infringe the plaintiff's personal information rights. however, the defendant provided the plaintiff's personal information to buick and gac honda car dealers, failed to fulfill the obligation of informed consent, and infringed the plaintiff's personal information rights. therefore, the court ruled that the defendant should stop the infringement, apologize, and compensate the plaintiff for economic losses of 1 yuan.
the beijing internet court pointed out that in the context of the digital economy, the sharing of personal information and the reasonable use of data can greatly exert the market value of data elements. however, how to legally and effectively use personal information urgently needs judicial regulation. the judgment in this case clarified the specific identification standards for the sharing of personal information between enterprises and the need to obtain the individual's separate consent, and provided clear behavioral guidance for enterprises to protect personal information and regulate data use.
beijing news reporter mu hongju
editor: gan hao
proofread by zhang yanjun
