China - Anonymised individual v Anonymised applet developer, 29 April 2024

Claimant: Anonymised individual

Defendant: Anonymised applet developer

The claimant sought the following remedies:

1. Remove infringing videos and prominently display a publicly issued apology statement within the applet for one consecutive month;
2. Compensate the plaintiff for economic losses amounting to RMB 48,000 and reasonable legal expenses of RMB 2,000, totalling RMB 50,000.

Claimant:

The defendant, without authorisation, used the claimant’s original classical-style video works to create new videos through AI face-swapping technology for the purpose of generating commercial traffic. This conduct constitutes an infringement of the claimant’s right to disseminate the works via information networks.

Defendant:

1. The claimant published classical-style portrait photography videos on the social media platform, featuring a female protagonist with a highly recognisable appearance. There is a visually discernible difference between the female protagonists in the copyrighted videos and those in the AI-processed videos.
2. The defendant utilised an AI video fusion interface to generate ‘face-swapped’ videos using synthetic algorithms. This process inherently blurs side-profile shots, and the videos uploaded by the defendant excluded such angles from the claimant’s original footage.
3. The videos displayed by the defendant were provided by users of the applet to the defendant’s staff. To mitigate the risk of infringement, the defendant undertook corresponding processing prior to uploading, replacing the face in the claimant’s videos with that of a staff member.

Court’s Judgement:

1. The AI-processed videos bear substantial similarity to the claimant’s copyrighted videos. It was created by partially replacing the original footage using AI face-swapping technology and lacks independent originality. The defendant did not contribute to the creative process or add any personal expression.
2. The defendant’s conduct constitutes an infringement of the claimant’s right to disseminate their work via information networks. The AI-processed video closely mirrors the original’s expression and may serve as a market substitute, potentially diminishing its commercial value. Even if the videos were initially submitted by a user, the defendant’s staff directly received and processed it. As an internet service provider, the defendant failed to exercise reasonable diligence in addressing the risk of infringement.