Anyone who accuses a competitor of recreating their product photos using artificial intelligence must also prove it. The Frankfurt am Main Regional Court has dismissed a copyright lawsuit on this matter ( Judgment of May 27, 2026, Case No. 2-06 O 347/25 ) and, in doing so, highlighted two obstacles that could cause claims related to AI-generated works to fail: the burden of proof and the limited scope of protection for simple photographs. The decision is not yet final.

The Case: Similar Product Images and a Suspected Case of AI Use

The plaintiff develops and sells cable glands for photovoltaic systems and offers them for sale on eBay. When a competitor began selling a very similar product with product images that looked similar, he believed his photos had been infringed upon. His theory: The competitor had fed his images into an AI system and used them to generate her own product images.

To support this claim, the plaintiff uploaded his own photo to ChatGPT and had it edited using the prompt “create a realistic or cleanly rendered version of the previous image.” Because the result resembled the defendant’s image, he concluded that the defendant must have used exactly this method. The defendant countered that she had edited only her own photos using AI tools and submitted her own original photographs.

First hurdle: Anyone who claims to use AI must prove it

The court did not go beyond the plaintiff’s allegation. Under Section 286 of the German Code of Civil Procedure (ZPO), the court must be convinced with sufficient certainty that a legal violation has occurred—and the plaintiff was unable to establish this conviction. In the court’s view, the fact that an AI system can generate a similar result from his photo does not prove that the defendant actually chose this method. The plaintiff failed to provide any evidence to support his claim, whereas the defendant submitted her own original images from which her depiction could just as easily have been created.

This is the crux of the matter in practice: the similarity between two images and the technical feasibility of AI-based editing are not sufficient. Anyone basing a claim for AI-assisted infringement must provide concrete evidence that their specific work was used—such as characteristic errors or artifacts found in the disputed image, metadata, or verifiable access. Simply recreating the image using one’s own AI prompt is not sufficient for this purpose.

Second hurdle: Simple photographs have only a narrow scope of protection

However, the court did not dismiss the claim solely on the basis of the issue of evidence, but made it clear that even if the defendant had used the plaintiff’s photograph, there would be no infringement of its scope of protection. Although the product photograph is protected as a simple photograph under § 72 of the German Copyright Act (UrhG), it is not aphotographic work under § 2(1)(5) of the UrhG because it lacks creative expression. It clearly served only the purpose of showing the product in a real-world usage scenario; the framing and angle of the shot were determined by this function, not by a free creative decision.

This has significant implications for the scope of protection: The less distinctive a work is, the narrower its scope of protection. In the case of a simple photograph, protection is generally limited to identical or only slightly modified reproductions. Even more extensive modifications ensure sufficient distinction within the meaning of § 23 UrhG. This is precisely what the Chamber assumed in this case: a different frame, a wider gap in the roof tile, differently positioned cables, and a different color scheme. Thus, the scope of protection of the photograph was not affected. This leads to the guiding principle of the decision: If a simple photograph is edited using AI, the result may fall outside the scope of protection of the original image.

Special Case: CAD and Rendered Images

A second image at issue was a CAD rendering. Such images generated by a computer program are not photographs within the meaning of § 72 of the German Copyright Act (UrhG), because they do not depict actual events—even if they appear photorealistic. Protection as a work of applied art (Section 2(1)(4) UrhG) or as a technical illustration (Section 2(1)(7) UrhG) is, in principle, possible, but requires the necessary level of creativity. This was lacking in this case: the illustration was a technical representation, designed to be as faithful to the original as possible, for the purpose of clarifying the assembly. Renderings and CAD images are therefore often even less protected than photographs.

What This Means for Rights Holders and Companies

The ruling imposes two requirements on rights holders. From a procedural standpoint, the claim that a work was copied using AI must be supported by reliable evidence—suspicion alone is not sufficient to establish a claim. In substantive terms, it demonstrates how tenuous the line of defense is when it comes to purely functional product photos: Against an AI-assisted “remix” that creates sufficient distance, the protection of photographs under Section 72 of the German Copyright Act (UrhG) offers little recourse.

In practice, this means that anyone who relies on product images should consciously make use of and document their creative freedom—through the concept, staging, lighting, and post-processing—to move from the weaker protection afforded to photographs to the stronger protection afforded to artistic works (for more on this, see our article “Using AI Images Legally—But How?”). And before a cease-and-desist letter is issued due to alleged AI editing, the evidence must be thoroughly examined. We’ll review the case for you to determine whether an infringement can actually be proven and how your images can be effectively protected.