• The court found that the personas of the avatars at issue met the originality threshold and constituted works of fine art 

• The models listed by the defendants were identical or highly similar to the protected personas 

• The decision falls short of providing an operational test for substantial similarity 

In August 2025 the Beijing Internet Court publicised a case brief conffrming that virtual digital humans – or digital avatars – may be copyrightable. The judgment has now taken legal effect. The Beijing Internet Court had previously ruled on the ffrst copyright caseShutterstock/SuPatMaNregarding AI-generated painting. The present dispute is yet another AI-related case that received public attention. 

Background

The plaintiffs were the co-developers and right holders of two avatars. One of the avatars is highly recognised by the public, with over 4.4 million followers across platforms. The plaintiffs argued that the visual personas of these two digital avatars constituted protectable works of ffne art under the Copyright Law.  

The ffrst defendant was an ex-employee of one of the co-developing companies, who allegedly listed and sold 3D models on a computer graphics (CG) model marketplace operated by the second defendant. The plaintiffs claimed that the ffrst defendant infringed their reproduction rights and their right of communication through an information network. The plaintiffs further contended that the second defendant had failed to fulffl its duty of care as the platform operator and should be held jointly liable. 

A key argument by the defendants was that the uploaded CG models covered the entire body, while the copyright alleged covered only the head of the avatars; therefore, they were not similar. A second argument was that the second defendant, as a network service provider, had implemented reasonable preventive measures and maintained an efffcient takedown mechanism that was promptly used upon notice.  

Decision 

The Beijing Internet Court afffrmed that both plaintiffs had standing to sue. It found that the personas of the avatars did not derive directly from real persons, but were artistically created by a whole production team, reffecting original aesthetic choices in lines, colours and character design. Therefore, the personas met the originality threshold and constituted works of ffne art.  

With regard to infringement, the court found that the listed models were identical or highly similar to the protected personas of the avatars in terms of their facial features, hairstyle, accessories, clothing and overall style, as well as – critically – in the combination of original elements, amounting to substantial similarity and infringing the plaintiffs’ right of network communication.  

The court further determined that the ffrst defendant should pay Rmb15,000 in total in damages, based on the right type, market value, fault, nature and scale of the conduct, and the harm suffered. The second defendant, as a service provider, was not found jointly liable. 

Comment 

This judgment echoes with an earlier judgment handed down by the Hangzhou Intermediate Court at second instance in 2023, which ffrst dealt with the complexity of digital avatars. With these two judgments, it is generally accepted that the visual design of digital avatars may qualify as an artistic work. 

Nevertheless, the decision falls short of providing an operational test for substantial similarity, offering no clear guidance on how to balance overall impression versus elementby-element parsing or how to quantify similarity in AI-assisted pipelines. Further, how to calculate damages remains unclear. The statutory damages are too low to really deter infringers. More decisions are expected on these points.  

From the perspective of bolstering enforcement, rights holders are advised to clearly allocate and agree on ownership and licence. A whole team is usually needed to create an avatar, so it would be challenging to bring suit if ownership is unclear.  

In addition, an avatar is a complex work potentially embedding various rights. When facing infringement, rights holders may consider multiple claims based on copyright, unfair competition and trademark rights, among others, to increase leverage and boost damages.