Dog Photographer Loses Copyright Case Over AI-Generated Comic Version of Her Image

The photographer’s original dog photo (left) and the AI-generated comic-style image (right), which a court ruled did not infringe the original work’s copyright | Images via court documents

A photographer, specializing in underwater dog portraits, has lost a copyright case over an AI-generated comic-style image, created from one of her photo — with a court ruling it did not infringe her work.

A German Higher Court has ruled that transforming someone else’s photograph into a comic-style image using AI does not automatically constitute copyright infringement, in a landmark case for the country.

The case involved an unnamed animal photographer who sells underwater dog shots. The photographer sued a former business partner who used one of her original images — showing a dog diving toward a red toy — as input for an AI software that generated a comic-style version. The former collaborator later published the AI-generated image on their website.

The original photograph showed a dog reaching for a red toy underwater, with tight framing, shallow depth of field, and dynamic realism. The AI-generated version kept the same motif but transformed it into a cartoon-like image, with the dog shown in full and its paws exaggerated for a more playful appearance.

The photographer sued her former collaborator over the publication of the AI-generated image of her copyrighted work. But in April, the German court denied the photographer’s lawsuit. The court found that the AI image doesn’t copy the protectable elements of the original dog photograph, such as framing, perspective, lighting, and sharpness. The motif and subject themselves aren’t protected.

The Photographer’s ‘Unprotected Idea’

According to a post by law firm Bird & Bird, the photographer’s protected creative choices included the tight framing, specific perspective, and shallow depth of field that created the image’s distinctive effect. These were decisions made by the photographer at the time of capture. However, the scene itself — a dog reaching for a toy underwater — was considered an unprotected idea. The photographer captured that moment but did not create the underlying concept.

The court found that the AI-generated image changed the protected elements of the photograph, using different framing, a different angle, and a flat cartoon-style rendering rather than the original image’s realistic appearance and shallow depth of field. Because the AI-generated version retained only the unprotected subject matter and not the photograph’s protected creative elements, the court found that there was no copyright infringement.

“The scope of protection for a photographic work is generally limited to the choice of image composition, perspective, lighting, and the sharpness or blur achieved through the correct combination of aperture and exposure time,” the court ruled. “The subject matter and motif are generally not eligible for protection.”

The case follows a German court ruling against stock photographer Robert Kneschke, who sued AI dataset company LAION after discovering “heaps” of his photographs in one of its image databases. The dataset has been used by major tech companies to train AI image generators. The court ruled that because LAION provides the dataset for free, it qualifies as non-commercial and scientific research use.