← Blog

Someone copied my AI character. What can I actually show?

2026-10-10 · OpenStela

Short answer: you can show facts. Your earliest files and the dates on them. The sketches, drafts, prompts and reference images that led to the character. The places you posted it first, with their timestamps. And any third-party record that fixed a copy of it on a date. Together they answer the first question in almost any dispute: who had this, and when?

What you can't show on your own is that you'll win. Whether the look of a character is protected at all depends on where you are, on how much of it a person actually made, and on how close the copy is. An AI-generated character adds one more question: which parts did you make, and which did the model make? Below is what to gather, what each piece proves and doesn't, and where the official report forms are. This is general information, not legal advice.

What the law actually looks at

First, know what a copy claim is about. A lot of "they stole my character" turns out to be "they made something in the same style".

In the United States, the Copyright Office's Compendium, Chapter 300 (section 313.4(H), revision dated January 28, 2021) is direct about characters. It says "the copyright law does not protect the name or the general idea for a character". What it can protect is the expression: "the artistic rendition of the character in visual form or the literary delineation of the character's specific attributes in textual form". A silver-haired android in a red coat is an idea; your drawing of her is expression.

Taiwan draws the same line. Article 10-1 of the Copyright Act (as amended June 15, 2022) says protection extends only to the expression of a work, not to the ideas or concepts behind it. On copying itself, a study commissioned by Taiwan's IP Office (final report dated October 20, 2014) describes Taiwan courts as generally applying two requirements: access and substantial similarity. It quotes an appellate ruling: the person claiming copying must show the other side had access to their work, and that the two works are substantially similar.

Then the AI layer. The U.S. Copyright Office's Copyright and Artificial Intelligence, Part 2 (January 2025) concludes that "Copyright does not extend to purely AI-generated material", and that "prompts do not alone provide sufficient control". Taiwan's IP Office said in interpretation letter 電子郵件1141017b (October 17, 2025) that whether an AI-generated work is protected depends on whether a human put actual creative input into it, and that disputes go to the courts case by case. If your character came out of a single prompt, the copy may be rude without being infringing. If you drew the design sheet or trained the LoRA on your own art, there is more of you to point to. Can AI art be copyrighted? goes deeper on that.

What you can put on the table

Taiwan's IP Office answers this question in its copyright Q&A booklet (October 2021, item 12, a creator whose videos were reposted without permission). Because copyright is a private right, the creator carries the burden of proving both the right and the infringement. It suggests keeping the original files, plans and records of the making process, plus screenshots and other evidence of the infringing use. For an AI character, that list becomes:

1. Your earliest original files. The first export, the unedited generation, the project file, not a re-saved copy. File system dates can be changed, so treat them as a hint, not proof. Don't re-save them once a dispute starts.
2. The making-of trail. Sketches, rejected drafts, prompt history, seeds, the training set and settings for a LoRA, the design sheet, the edits you made by hand. This shows what a person did, the part the law protects.
3. Your references. The mood board and reference images you started from. Be honest about whose they are. If a reference was someone else's art, it shows your process, not your ownership.
4. Where you published first. Post URLs, upload dates as the platform shows them, the account name, and copies of the pages. A platform's own timestamp is a third party's record, which is stronger than a screenshot of your desktop.
5. Dated third-party records. Anything that fixed a copy of your character on a date someone else controls: a registration, an email to a client with the files attached, a commission invoice, an on-chain record.
6. The copy itself. Screenshots with the URL and date visible, the account name, the post text, and a saved copy of the page. Posts vanish once a complaint lands.

Five ways to prove a file existed on a date compares the options in point 5 side by side.

What each piece proves, and what it doesn't

Each piece answers one narrow question.

Two gaps are worth naming. First, being earlier is not the same as being copied. Someone can arrive at a similar character on their own, and the Taiwan study above discusses independent creation as a defense. Being first gets stronger when you can also show they could have seen it: you posted it publicly, they follow you, they commented on it. Second, the date on any record is the date it was made. A record you create today shows the character existed today, not last spring.

Reporting the copy on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube

Each platform has an official copyright form. We link them rather than summarise them; they change. Read each form's notice before you send.

• Instagram: Copyright report form. When we checked on October 10, 2026, this link redirected to Meta's Intellectual Property Reporting Form.
• TikTok: Report copyright infringement.
• YouTube: Submit a copyright removal request.

In the US, these forms sit on top of the DMCA notice process. Under 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3), a notice needs a signature, identification of the work you say was infringed, identification of the copy and where it is, your contact details, a statement of good-faith belief that the use isn't authorized, and a statement under penalty of perjury that you're authorized to act. Your evidence is what lets you name your work precisely.

It also cuts the other way. Section 512(f) makes anyone who "knowingly materially misrepresents" that material is infringing liable for the damages that causes. Taiwan's Copyright Act has the same idea in Article 90-11: a false notice sent intentionally or negligently creates liability for damages. If the copy is only "same vibe", or the matching parts came from the model rather than from you, think hard before filing.

The other side can push back. In the US, after a counter notification the platform puts the material back "not less than 10, nor more than 14, business days" later unless you've filed suit (§ 512(g)(2)(C)). Taiwan's Article 90-9 runs on the same clock of 10 and 14 working days. A takedown is often the start, not the end.

Where an OpenStela record fits

If the character was never registered anywhere, the best time to fix that is before the next post, not after the next copy. On OpenStela:

1. Register the character with one to four pictures. It gets an AVL number and a fingerprint of its specification, anchored to a public chain in that night's batch.
2. The character fingerprint covers the specification, not the images. To fix the images themselves, register each one as a work on the works page and bind it to the character. A work's fingerprint is the SHA-256 of the file.
3. Register the posts where you published it. Single Instagram, TikTok, X, Facebook and Threads post links can be registered. If we can't read the post, it is recorded as a link you declared, and the public page says so.
4. Fill in the date you made it and, if AI tools were involved, what you contributed. Both are your own statements. We don't check them, and the record says so.

Later, anyone can check a fingerprint on the verify page without an account, and you can download a Proof Pack that a third party can recompute offline. How a registered work is verified walks through it.

What that gives you is a dated, verifiable record: this file or this specification existed by this date, under this name. It is evidence if a dispute comes up, one item on the list above. It doesn't decide who owns the character, it doesn't show the other side saw it, and it can't reach back before the day you registered. What a character ID proves explains the three layers. If the copy turns up on OpenStela itself, the complaint route is in Terms §4C.

Registering is free for up to 50 characters per account. Uploaded works share 300 MB, and link-type works take almost none (see pricing).

When it's more than a takedown

If the copy is being sold, or a takedown bounces back, two official facts are worth knowing.

In the US, the Copyright Office's general FAQ says "You will have to register, however, if you wish to bring a lawsuit for infringement of a U.S. work." It adds that registered works may be eligible for statutory damages and attorney's fees, and that registration within five years of publication is prima facie evidence in court.

In Taiwan, you don't need to register anything. Copyright arises when the work is completed (Article 10). Article 13 presumes that the person named as author in the usual way on the work, or when it is published, is the author. A pen name counts if it is widely known. So publishing consistently under one name is itself part of your record. The TIPO booklet (item 11) also notes that copyright infringement is generally a crime prosecuted only on complaint, which the rights holder has to file.

This is general information, not legal advice. Take what you've gathered to a lawyer where you live.