Generative AI-Generated Content and Copyright Protection: Legal Boundaries and Institutional Innovation from a Chinese View

The rapid advancement of generative artificial intelligence (AI) has profoundly transformed the landscape of content creation and dissemination, while simultaneously posing significant challenges to traditional copyright frameworks. A clear understanding of its underlying technical mechanisms is essential for assessing the copyrightability of AI-generated outputs. Recognizing the emerging creative potential of generative AI, it is imperative to integrate the nature of algorithmic content generation with the normative principles of copyright law. By using the degree of human-machine interaction as a key criterion, originality should be evaluated in a tiered manner, with only those outputs produced under substantive human creative direction qualifying as protectable works. Concurrently, by centering on contractual freedom, clear principles for rights attribution should be established for both in general and specific use cases. Stakeholders should be permitted to define ownership and allocate benefits through binding agreements, thereby achieving a dynamic balance between technological innovation and the protection of intellectual property rights.