Wuhan Court Counts AI Token Costs in Copyright Ruling for First Time

A court in Wuhan, China, has for the first time factored the cost of AI tokens and licenses into a copyright compensation ruling. This is the first case of its kind in the country's court practice. A company made an hour-long drama using AI and posted it on WeChat. A competitor copied the video the next day. They gave it a new title and added ads. The court sided with the original creator. It awarded compensation of 20,000 yuan, about $2,900. The protection was not granted because the video was made by an AI model. It was granted because real people wrote the script, chose among the options, and edited the footage at every step.

The compensation in this case is small. The real story here is not about money. The court accepted drafts and the work history of the AI project as proof of genuine creative input, not the mere fact that an AI model was used. If I were making money from AI-generated content, I would save prompt drafts and editing history from day one, not just the final output. In my own work with agents, these intermediate files are usually the first thing that gets thrown away. It turns out they can be the main piece of evidence for authorship.