Artists and the Legal Battles of Generative AI

By: Atty. Hera Marie Ydulzura

When the world was forced into isolation during the pandemic, the internet became THE lifeline. It was one of the things that kept everyone connected. The toll of having all the time in the world with no one to physically share it with enabled individuals to explore or revisit their artistic sides. Sharing creations online became a source of joy and connection.

However, when the world opened its doors again after the pandemic, another door also swung wide open: the door to the world of generative AI.

Generative AI refers to machine-learning models or tools that can generate text, images, and other content based on the data they were trained on. Generative AI has rapidly evolved into a tool capable of composing music, writing stories, and producing artwork that can rival — if not surpass — the creations of human artists.

And this is where the issue lies. Generative AI can only create based on the data they were trained on. It learns from massive datasets made from existing works from artists all over the world. Often, these works are used without the creators' knowledge, consent, or compensation.

Take for example, the "Ghiblification" trend. Earlier this year, OpenAI's new deep learning model jump-started the era of AI-generated art. Like Studio Ghibli, many artists around the world have expressed concerns over their unique styles being mimicked at the click of a button.

At the heart of this issue is copyright — a form of legal protection given to the creators of original works such as art, music, films, books, and software. It gives the creator the exclusive right to decide how their work is used, reproduced, distributed, performed, or adapted. But with the advent of AI, the question remains: who owns ownership over these AI-generated works when it is built on the unpermitted use of countless human artistic creations?

In 2023, the Beijing Internet Court laid down a landmark case declaring that an AI-generated image is copyrightable, affirmed by the Changshu People's Court in 2025. The Chinese courts concluded that the plaintiff's AI-generated work was entitled to copyright protection because the plaintiff could guide and influence the resulting image by modifying prompts entered into the AI tool, providing their own human creative expression.

The United States Copyright Office has taken a different approach, requiring substantial human authorship for copyright protection. As these legal questions continue to unfold globally, the Philippines will need to grapple with the same issues under its own intellectual property framework.