La pensée de l’écrivain, en tant que pensée, échappe à toute main qui voudrait la saisir; elle s’envole d’âme en âme; elle a ce don et cette force, — virum volitare per ora; mais le livre est distinct de la pensée; comme livre, il est saisissable, tellement saisissable qu’il est quelquefois saisi.
Publication
2023

The main text of this publication was the subject of Shenzhen Tencent Computer System Co Ltd v Shanghai Yingxun Technology Co Ltd (Tencent). The plaintiff Tencent has independently developed a set of data and algorithm-based intelligent writing assistance system called Dreamwriter to meet the needs of large-scale and personalized content businesses. On August 20, 2018, Tencent first published a financial report on the Tencent Securities website and noted at the end that: “This article was automatically written by Tencent’s robot Dreamwriter”. The Defendant in this case, Shanghai Yingxun, without Tencent’s permission and authorization, republished the article on its website on the same day. Following, the plaintiff sued Shanghai Yingxun Company to the Court on the grounds of copyright infringement and unfair competition. On Dec 24, 2019 the Shenzhen Nanshan District People’s Court recognized the human creator’s selection and arrangement involved in producing the relevant output and ruled that the output generated by Dreamwriter satisfied the requirements for written works and therefore was protected- ble under the Copyright Law of China. The Court ordered the defendant to compensate the plaintiff for economic losses of ¥1500, making it the first case judicially confirming that AI-generated outputs can be granted copyright protection in China.

Translation by Zhou Yuqi and Julian Siffert

Exhibition text