Law note · China
Copyright Law, Article 24 (closed list of exceptions, no text-and-data-mining item)
What it asks of an app
- Do not rely on Article 24's closed list of exceptions to justify training an AI model on scraped copyrighted content; none of its items covers text-and-data mining or AI training.
- Treat use of copyrighted material beyond personal study, brief quotation, or the other listed exceptions as needing the rightholder's permission.
When LexLint raises it
trains_models
What we found
Article 24 sets out a closed list of permitted uses that do not require the copyright holder's consent or payment: personal study, brief quotation for commentary, unavoidable reproduction in news reporting, and reprinting current-affairs commentary absent a reservation, among others. There is no general fair-use clause and no text-and-data-mining exception, so training an AI model on scraped copyrighted content has no dedicated statutory basis under this article.
Courts have so far worked the fair-use-adjacent question through AI output cases rather than collection: the Guangzhou Internet Court found AI-generated images infringing in February 2024 (secondary-sourced, the Ultraman case), while the Hangzhou Internet Court held in September 2024, upheld that December, that training itself can be lawful absent intent to plagiarize expression or unreasonable prejudice to the rightholder (secondary-sourced); neither directly answers whether scraping for training is itself permitted.