01
Factual background & dispute
- Users could create AI companions and define names, portraits, and relationships.
- Many users created companions based on the claimant and uploaded the claimant's portrait and conversational materials.
- The operator clustered and recommended the roles and organized user-submitted material into a dedicated dialogue corpus.
02
Core issues & judicial focus
- How a virtual persona combining a person's name, portrait, and personality traits is protected
- How responsibility is allocated between user creation and platform organization and recommendation
- Whether simulated companionship with a real person requires that person's consent
03
Judicial finding & holding
- Unauthorized use of the claimant’s name and portrait for an AI companion infringed name and portrait rights; exploiting personality interests through the interaction design also infringed general personality rights.
- The platform substantively organized and participated in the service and was liable.
- The court ordered an apology and RMB 203,000 for economic loss and mental distress. The judgment became effective after withdrawal of the appeal.
Dates & procedural record
- The Beijing government’s data department had already described the case; the 2025 release was not when the dispute first arose.
04
Practical risk implications
01Companion products require express authorization before using a real person's name, image, voice, or persona.
02User creation does not eliminate platform responsibility for clustering, recommendation, training, and commercialization.
03Products should support identity complaints, character removal, data deletion, and repeat-creation prevention.