S. Š. v TAUBEL LEGAL, advokátní kancelář s.r.o.
| Court | Municipal Court in Prague |
| Country | Czech Republic |
| Parties | Claimant: S. Š. (individual) Defendant: Taubel Legal, advokátní kancelář s.r.o. |
| Date Claim Issued | 20 June 2023 |
| Type of Claim | Copyright infringement |
| Status as at July 2024 | The judgement was announced on 11 October 2023. |
| Summary of Background Facts | S. Š. used a generative AI model to create an image for Taubel Legal with the prompt: "create a visual representation of two individuals signing a business contract in a formal setting, like a commercial room or a law office in Prague, showing only the hands." This image was then copied and sent to Taubel Legal, who published the image on its website without obtaining S. Š.’s consent. |
| Remedies sought | The claimant sought: (1) determination of authorship; (2) removal of the image from the defendant's website; and (3) refrainment from further infringement. |
| Summary of key legal arguments | The court concluded that under Czech copyright law, a work must be the unique result of the author's creative intellectual activity; and the author can only be an individual. For this reason, an image generated by AI model does not qualify for copyright protection under Czech copyright law. The court also concluded that the claimant did not prove the image was created based on his prompt. However, even if this was proved, the court noted that a prompt could be considered as a subject of a work or an idea which are not protected under Czech copyright law. For the above reasons, the court dismissed the claim, establishing that the generated image could not be protected by copyright, and the claimant was not an author of such an image. |
| CMS Comment | This decision is significant as it is the very first decision where a Czech court addressed the potential protection of AI generated content under Czech copyright law. Even though the decision follows Czech copyright law in its principle, we consider its importance limited because the lawsuit was dismissed particularly for procedural reasons on the side of the claimant who was unable to prove his statements. |
