Does imitating other people’s AI prompts to generate one’s own work constitute infringement? The first AI prompt word copyright infringement case judgment!

Generative AI has long been integrated into daily life. A beautiful painting or a creative video can be quickly generated with just a few prompts. These seemingly simple instructions are the “baton” of AI creation, directly determining the style, details, and presentation effects of the final work.

But the controversy that followed was also increasing: the prompt words I spent time polishing were directly copied by others, generating almost identical paintings for commercial use. Does it really count as copyright infringement?

The problem that has plagued the entire AIGC industry finally has a judicial standard answer.

Recently, the People’s Court of Huangpu District, Shanghai, made a first instance judgment on the first AI prompt word copyright infringement dispute case in China: the AI prompt word involved does not constitute a work in the sense of copyright law, and copying the prompt word to generate a painting does not constitute infringement. The court rejected all of the plaintiff’s claims.

This case is regarded by the industry as a milestone judgment in the field of AI intellectual property, directly delineating the legal boundaries of prompt words and having strong guiding significance for all designers, creators, and enterprises.

1、 Case restoration: The prompt words were ‘copied verbatim’

The plaintiff is a cultural and creative company in Shanghai that has been using AI models for art creation for a long time and publishing the generated works on online platforms for display and commercial promotion. The company claims to have invested a lot of effort in designing multiple sets of prompts containing artistic style, subject elements, material details, composition lighting, and other content, and has generated a series of exquisite paintings based on these prompts.

Not long after, the company discovered that the paintings posted by online users Zhu and Sheng were highly similar in style, composition, and details to their works, and even included in publicly published art catalogs. After verification, it was found that the two individuals completely copied and used the company’s prompts to generate paintings on the same AI platform and spread them to the public.

The plaintiff believes that these prompt words are their own intellectual achievements, containing clear creative intentions and aesthetic choices, and belong to literary works, which should be protected by copyright law. The defendant has infringed upon their reproduction rights, information network dissemination rights, and other rights by using it without permission. Therefore, they have filed a lawsuit to the court, demanding to stop the infringement and compensate for the losses.

However, the two defendants insist that the prompt words are not works at all, but simple vocabulary splicing, belonging to operational instructions rather than legally protected creative expressions, and therefore do not constitute infringement.

On one hand, there are words that I carefully wrote but were directly copied away, and on the other hand, there are words that are not considered creative, why can’t they be used!

The core of the dispute between the two parties ultimately falls on a key issue:

Is AI prompt word a “work” protected by copyright law?

2、 Court ruling: Prompt word ≠ work, copying without infringement

After the trial, the Huangpu District Court in Shanghai strictly followed the core principles of the Copyright Law and provided clear and explicit reasons for the judgment, which also clarified the cognitive misunderstandings of the entire industry.

The court determined from three dimensions that the prompt words involved in the case do not constitute a work:

1. The prompt words belong to “ideas” and do not belong to protected “expressions”

There is a core rule in copyright law – the dichotomy of ideas and expressions: the law only protects specific original expressions and does not protect abstract ideas, concepts, plans, and operational instructions.

The involved prompt words are essentially a list of instructions issued to the AI system, listing and describing the style, elements, and composition of the picture, only staying at the conceptual level of “what to draw and how to draw”, belonging to the category of ideas, rather than literary and artistic expressions that can be protected.

Simply put, if you want to draw a jellyfish image in the Art Nouveau style, this is the idea; Breaking down this idea into keywords and inputting them into AI is still an instruction, not a work.

2. Formally, it is just a simple pile up and has no literary or artistic value

From the perspective of expression, the prompt words involved in the case are only a combination of general vocabulary such as style, material, composition, and lighting, without a complete sentence structure, narrative logic, literary or artistic value, and are closer to a “recipe description” rather than a written work.

3. Failure to meet the requirement of “originality” and lack of personalized intellectual investment

The core condition for creating a work is originality, which means it is independently completed and reflects the author’s unique aesthetic judgment, choices, and personalized expression.

The court believes that the prompt words used in the case are all industry common descriptions, just a combination of conventional elements, without reflecting a unique aesthetic perspective or personalized intellectual creation, and do not meet the legal standards of the work.

In addition, the court also emphasized the policy orientation:

If such simple keyword combinations are recognized as works and granted monopolistic rights, it will seriously restrict the normal use of language, hinder the communication and optimization of prompt words, undermine the openness and innovation of the AI creation ecosystem, and violate the fundamental purpose of copyright law to “encourage creation and promote cultural development”.

In the end, the court ruled in the first instance that:

The plaintiff does not have copyright over the prompt words involved in the case, and the defendant does not constitute infringement. Therefore, the plaintiff’s lawsuit request is rejected.

3、 Judgment interpretation: These key understandings must be understood by all creators

This national first judgment may seem simple, but it solves the most easily confused intellectual property issue in the AI era. We can extract several core conclusions that are practical for everyone.

✅ Ordinary AI prompt words are basically not protected by copyright: short prompt words composed of keywords used in daily life do not constitute written works in principle and cannot be used for rights protection. Others can directly copy your short prompts to generate artwork without infringing on copyright.

✅ What is protected is the ‘artwork’, not the ‘prompt word’: Many people have misunderstood the protected object: the law protects the AI artwork that you ultimately generate and personalize, not the string of instructions you input. What truly has value and can protect one’s rights is the finished product, not the keywords.

✅ Not all prompt words are absolutely unprotected: the court did not adopt a one size fits all approach. If the prompt word is a long, complete, narrative, unique writing style, and a complex text that incorporates original copy, reflecting sufficient personalized intellectual investment, it may still be recognized as a written work. But this situation rarely occurs in daily AI painting.

✅ Borrowing and modifying prompt words is completely safe: using public prompt words, modifying and optimizing on the basis of others’ prompt words, and replacing elements are all normal creative behaviors and do not involve infringement. The industry no longer needs to worry about using similar prompts.The verdict of the first AI prompt word copyright case in the country has put a “precise brake” on the hot AIGC industry and also pointed out the direction. It tells us that the law protects human creative expression, not machine operating instructions; What is encouraged is high-quality creative results, not simply keyword stuffing. For every AI creator, the true competitiveness is never how many “exclusive tips” you hide, but whether you can use AI to create unique, aesthetically pleasing, and valuable works.

Compliance, originality, and leaving a lasting impression are the long-term ways to ensure the stability and success of AI creation.

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