Content generated using artificial intelligence may enjoy copyright protection under certain circumstances. This was decided by the Munich Local Court in February (final judgment of February 13, 2026, file no. 142 C 9786/25). In the specific case decided, however, the court denied copyright protection. In recent years, US courts had already ruled that AI-generated content is not eligible for copyright protection under US law (e.g., U.S. Court of Appeals D. Columbia Circuit, judgment of March 18, 2025, file no. 23-5233 – Stephen Thaler v. U.S. Copyright Office).

Facts

The plaintiff had created the “logos” reproduced below using generative AI and used them on his website.

The defendant reproduced these logos and used them on his website without the plaintiff’s consent.

Argumentation of the Plaintiff

The plaintiff argued that the AI used to create the logos was merely a tool – albeit a particularly powerful one – whose use did not preclude personal intellectual creation within the meaning of Section 2 (2) of the German Copyright Act (UrhG) if the design of the product could be attributed to the intellectual creative act of a human being. An essential indication of the act of intellectual creation was the iterative process and the multiple human editing of the product, through which the product was increasingly shaped in accordance with direct human input. The iterative revision process can be compared to the work of a sculptor who carves a statue out of stone step by step and checks at each intermediate stage whether the current state of his work already corresponds to his intellectual creative conception and, if necessary, makes corrective interventions.

Argumentation of the Defendant

The defendant argued that the logos could not constitute works eligible for copyright protection within the meaning of Section 2 of the German Copyright Act (UrhG) because they had not been created by a human being. The user of generative AI does not perform any creative work. The very fact that anyone can produce complex, stylistically diverse works en masse in a very short time and with minimal effort shows that the creative contribution of humans is completely overshadowed by automated generation. The lack of control by the user over the creative process and the lack of predictability of the specific output also argue against the mere tool characteristic. The AI decides for itself what the product should look like, without the user having any control over this.

Court Decision

The Munich Local Court dismissed the action for an injunction against the publication of the logos and for their removal from the defendant’s website. It ruled that the products in dispute were not works of applied art protected by copyright under Section 2 (1) No. 4, (2) UrhG.

Copyright Protection is possible with Human Creative Influence

The Munich Local Court did not rule that products generated by artificial intelligence generally cannot have the character of a work within the meaning of copyright law.

Rather, the court focused on the extent to which human creative influence is still exerted despite the software-controlled process flow. Copyright protection is therefore conceivable as a result of human intervention in AI results, whereby this intervention can also take place retrospectively or successively during prompting if it leads to the output also reflecting the personality of the person prompting.

Human creative influence on the design of the specific work itself is therefore necessary, for example through sufficiently individual presettings when programming the creation process of the specific product itself, possibly in conjunction with a selection process among the generated products. The mere selection of an AI product from several “suggestions” made by the AI is not sufficient in itself. Copyright protection and ancillary copyright protection for the AI product are not applicable if the generation of the product is entirely software-controlled.

Creative Elements in Prompting must Dominate the Output

Ultimately, the decisive factor is whether the prompting expresses the creative abilities of the person prompting in an independent manner by making free and creative decisions and thus also giving the output a personal touch. The design should not be dictated by the technical function of the AI, but rather the person prompting must express their creative spirit in an original way.

Figuratively speaking, it is necessary that the use of the AI model is closer to a tool than an independent creative instrument. Ultimately, the input must shape the resulting output in a sufficiently objective and clearly identifiable manner.

In the court’s opinion, this is only the case if the creative elements incorporated into the prompt dominate the output to such an extent that the object as a whole can be regarded as the author’s own original creation.

It is therefore not sufficient if, in the context of prompting, the creative “decision” is ultimately left to the AI by means of only general, open-ended instructions, even if these are numerous and thus gradually change the appearance of the output.

Costs and Effort are Irrelevant

The Munich Local Court rejected the plaintiff’s argument that the costs, effort, and care involved in creating the prompt should be taken into account in the assessment. According to the court, it is completely irrelevant whether a paid premium version of the AI is used or how complex and carefully a prompt was created. This is because purely manual activities do not reflect personality, regardless of how costly or time-consuming these activities are. Copyright law does not reward and protect investment, effort, or diligence, but only the result of a creative activity.

Analysis of the Prompts

The plaintiff had documented the individual prompting steps he had used to create the logos and presented them in court. The court analyzed this documentation in detail and concluded that none of the three logos could be considered an original work of the plaintiff in which his personality was expressed as the result of a free creative decision.

Presettings in the Programming of the Creation Process

It is not entirely clear what the court means by “presettings when programming the creation process of the specific product itself”, which could justify human creative influence on the design of the specific work. If this means that the author was already involved in programming the AI system—as opposed to merely using an existing AI system—then this case is likely to be very rare in practice.

Protection of Investment and Effort

The Munich Local Court’s remark that copyright does not reward and protect the investment, effort, or diligence, but only the result of creative activity, applies only to copyright, not to the related rights regulated in Sections 70 et seq. of the German Copyright Act (UrhG). In the context of related rights, such as the protection of database producers pursuant to Sections 87a et seq. UrhG, investment and effort are indeed protected.

Significance of the Decision

The decision is of fundamental importance in that the court did not a priori reject copyright protection for products created using AI. As is so often the case, the same applies here: it depends. Even a work created with the help of AI can enjoy copyright protection if it is the result of a creative process by a human creator and the latter has clearly and objectively identifiably influenced the output.

According to these principles, for example, an image generated by AI based on the alteration and processing of a photo, to which the AI user holds the copyright, and which was previously uploaded to the AI by the AI user, should be eligible for copyright protection without further ado.

The decision is also interesting in light of the Ad Blocker IV (Werbeblocker IV) decision of the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) of July 31, 2025 (file no. I ZR 131/23), see Ad‑blockers infringing, cheat software not – TCI Rechtsanwälte. In that case, the Federal Court of Justice included code in the scope of copyright protection for computer programs that was not created directly by the author of the computer program, but only indirectly, in that the author created code that in turn generates code. The Federal Court of Justice thus recognized that copyright protection cannot be denied solely on the grounds that the work in its concrete form is the output of a computer.

However, protection for a logo created using AI can be obtained by registering the logo as a trademark. You can read about what needs to be considered in detail here: AI-generated content and trademark law – TCI Rechtsanwälte.