Can AI-generated content be protected by copyright? A comparative study of China, the United States, and the European Union

Artificial intelligence-generated content challenges traditional copyright systems centered on human authorship. This paper compares the copyrightability, authorship, and protection of AI-generated content in China, the United States, and the European Union. Using Zweigert and Kötz’s ‘legal style’ framework, it examines differences across five dimensions: historical background, modes of legal reasoning, sources of law and their hierarchy, institutional structure and value orientation, and the division of roles among legal actors.While all three jurisdictions adhere to the principle of human authorship, the U.S. emphasizes creative control with a high evidentiary threshold, the EU prioritizes doctrinal coherence, and China adopts a pragmatic transitional approach which protecting AIGC through expansive judicial interpretation and administrative regulations despite the lack of specialized legislation. This flexibility, however, has produced doctrinal ambiguity, unstable adjudicative standards, and insufficient procedural rules. Accordingly, this article proposes a phased three-stage reform for China: short-term judicial interpretations and mandatory labeling, medium-term optimization of registration and evidentiary rules, and long-term legislative amendments introducing a dedicated AIGC provision with differentiated protection terms. This analysis links comparative insights with China’s internal institutional diagnosis, offering a realistic path for adapting China’s copyright system to the AI era.