Filling the Legislative Gap: How Chinese Courts Are Forging a Copyright Path for AI-Generated Works

Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is rapidly evolving in ways that strain the traditional contours of intellectual property law, particularly the foundational copyright requirements of human authorship and originality. The widespread adoption of these AI systems has sparked ongoing discussions about the protectability of AI-generated works and the sufficiency of current legal frameworks. As China aims to emerge as a global leader in AI development, its legal system faces growing pressure to fill the new gaps exposed by these new technologies, serving as an excellent case study. Through an analysis of legislation and academic literature, the study opens by contextualizing the subject matter, introducing the concept of GenAI and outlining the evolution of China’s flourishing AI ecosystem. Building on this overview, it delves into the theoretical and practical friction emerging within China’s copyright ecosystem, where the 2020 statutory amendments left a legislative gap regarding machine-generated output that courts have been forced to navigate. At the core of this thesis is an analysis of the judicial trajectory regarding AI-generated content’s copyrightability, with a focus on the interpretive role of courts. By reviewing landmark cases—ranging from the early Feilin v. Baidu to the pivotal Tencent Dreamwriter and Li v. Liu cases—the research traces a judicial trend toward recognizing copyright safeguards for works created with generative AI, often contingent on demonstrable human involvement and intellectual contribution. Ultimately, this thesis argues that Chinese courts are actively forging a functional “Chinese approach” to AI-generated content. This approach pragmatically adapts copyright doctrine to the contemporaneity while maintaining the formal primacy of human authorship, thereby filling the legislative void and offering a model for other jurisdictions.