Chapter 53: ·

AI-generated recipes — and not just recipes, but AI-generated works in general — are they protected by copyright?

It's a hotly debated question with no settled answer in the public consciousness.

Even though real court cases have already ruled that copyright for AI-generated text and images belongs to the creator, the public isn't fully on board.

In most people's eyes, using AI to generate something is just taking a shortcut — or, to put it bluntly, cheating.

If the inspiration comes from AI, and a few more prompts could get anyone there, then where's the originality?

Well and Star Kitchen went quiet for a while, and netizens figured the drama had blown over — pretty disappointing.

Then the response finally came.

AI recipes absolutely have copyright, they argued, and they backed it up with examples.

One key factor courts use to determine whether copyright belongs to the creator: how much the person 'trained' the AI.

'Trained' meaning the keywords typed into the prompt box — specific, detailed, high word count, clear requirements.

And they hadn't just run it once.

The AI-generated recipe wasn't used as-is either; they cooked from it first, then refined it.

Not just tweaking the shape or shaving off a few seconds — real, substantive improvements based on their own understanding of the dish.

Well and Star Kitchen blew up partly because of their creative recipes, so innovating on top of an AI base wasn't hard for them.

After refining, if the taste was still off, they'd feed the updated recipe back into AI for another round of polish.

They went back and forth like that over a dozen times.

Well and Star Kitchen's position: this recipe is 80% original, well above the threshold for an originality ruling.

As for the overlapping phrasing the other blogger flagged — AI just defaults to common expressions when summarizing.

In this counter-counter-reveal, Well and Star Kitchen released their full chat logs with the AI.

You could clearly see the final product looked nothing like the first draft.

Every impressive element in that original dish came from what Well and Star Kitchen fed into the AI — no question.

Netizens: '...' Another reversal?! [Netizens are headless flies right now — whose side are we even supposed to be on...] [AI is literally a tool made to be used.

How is using it cheating?

Isn't it just like using Baidu?] [Same concept?] [Courts already ruled on it — you questioning the courts?] [I think we need to wait for the official response — not the courts, I mean Aurora Fairyland...] Oh right, Sang Yu checked.

Their decision — no AI recipes accepted.

Sang Yu wasn't anti-AI — he'd invested in an AI animation company before, because the industry's future looked bright.

But for some reason, his gut reaction this time was to shake his head and say no.

Hmm... was it because this project was close to his heart?

He'd bought into other people's creativity, so Sang Yu had put in serious money here — total investment roughly equivalent to The Demolition Office, probably.

And more would need to go in later.

So yeah, politely declining on this one.

The event rules had specified original recipes, and there was also a standard disclaimer — final interpretation rights reserved by the organizer.

Predictably, the netizen response was loud. [Sang Yu, rejecting AI-assisted creation might get you labeled as discriminating against AI tools — that's going against the current, you know] [The standard is getting unreasonable.

AI has infiltrated every industry now.

Using a search engine to look something up is basically a form of AI.

Does Googling something before writing an essay mean it's no longer my original work?] [Not accepting AI isn't illegal though...] [Why is everyone attacking this?

If I pay for an artist to turn a photo into a 2D portrait, I'd also ask them to hand-draw it without AI —] [Can't a buyer have preferences?] [But AI is already so widespread — will a blanket ban even do anything?] [The real victims are the ones whose ideas got scraped by AI.

Their recipe gets synthesized from data across the internet and then someone else uses it — and now they have to prove their own innocence] [What if others used AI too but just didn't get caught?

Maybe just open it up so everyone can earn — less collateral damage] [But is that fair to everyone else?

If I grind out a dish from scratch and then watch someone use AI to get the same payout, I'd be sick] [So AI is just the way things are going...] [Just put it in the contract — if AI use is discovered, the contract's void and they pay the penalty] ...

What started as a recipe drama had slowly fermented into a full-on social issue, pulling in the middle-aged crowd and putting Aurora Fairyland on their radar.

The turning point: a TV talk show with steady ratings, beloved by the older demographic — Face to Face with the People.

The show's chosen topic: 'In this era, what are people using AI for?' Sang Yu got a message. — Mom, you're on TV again!

That's right, again.

Previously, Sang Yu had been mentioned as a 'young outstanding entrepreneur' in connection with Aurora Fairyland's government-partnered scenic development project.

Now he was on again.

Too bad the 'Cthulhu' pulling the strings behind the scenes was going unnoticed — nobody knew.

Not that Sang Yu minded.

He liked this setup: free, low-key, just vibing.

He opened the show, ready to watch seriously and take a commemorative screenshot.

The host was Zhou Yun.

A middle-aged male host with a square face and a deep, resonant voice — well-regarded by local audiences, and Sang Yu recognized him.

Two guest seats: one commentator, one intellectual property lawyer.

The audience section was packed, skewing older, with nearly half of them sporting salt-and-pepper hair.

Were they real audience members?

Actors?

Sang Yu was genuinely curious.

It suddenly reminded him of the Spring Gala.

Aren't the audience members at the Spring Gala broadcast actors too?

Do the big shots of the Beijing circle — the connected elites — actually watch the Spring Gala like it's their company year-end party? ...

Speaking of the Spring Gala, Sang Yu's assistant Cui Jin had a connection there too.

Aurora Entertainment had a massive hit drama this year, and it launched some actors along with it — if no one crashed out, those actors would be on the Spring Gala stage by next year at the latest.

The company got its cut, sure, but ultimately those were someone else's artists.

Felt a little like doing all the work for someone else's benefit.

Especially with Xi Xingfa's little 'accident'...

Because of that incident, Huajing Entertainment's actress Ouyang Changyi — who played the female lead in The Demolition Office — had definitely cashed in on the windfall.

As an assistant, you couldn't just look at what was right in front of you.

Reading what Sang Yu expected from Aurora Entertainment... to surpass Hongming, Yuanxing, and Love to Watch TV — the three major players.

All three of those platforms had their signed artists, their 'about-to-blow-up' picks, their crown princes and darlings, all locked in.

One rises, all rise.

One falls, all fall.

That structure worked in the company's favor.

On Aurora Entertainment's side, Xuan Leron and Yu Zhitao — both currently free agents — had expressed interest in signing.

Aurora Entertainment adopting that model, opening a signing department and developing its own talent, wasn't out of the question. · Ouyang Changyi, who'd just been mentioned — the newly minted rising star with a seemingly bright future ahead — wasn't having an easy time of it.

She'd blown up because of Sang Luoling, the female lead in The Demolition Office, but then the whole mess with young Xi Xingfa and Chen Liqi had happened.

Sang Yu hadn't held it against her personally, but it still left her in an awkward limbo — not quite up, not quite down, and feeling bad about herself.

Not only had she been visibly on edge at the last wrap party, she also hadn't gone to audition for any of Aurora's new projects. — Huajing Entertainment had also told her to lie low for now and focus on commercial appearances first.

Proactively going to audition for Aurora's projects would look more like shameless provocation than ambition.

Ouyang Changyi: '...' About what her boss had done — she could grumble about it privately, but she couldn't change anything.

And with Sang Yu's side, there was even less she could do.

Stuck in the middle.

Absolutely brutal.

Ever since The Demolition Office, she could've gone from a nobody to a top-tier star in one leap.

Her commercial value had exploded.

National brand endorsements, luxury brand outreach, a one-time seven-figure appearance fee for a mall event... she'd gotten a real taste of what it meant to be hot.

But there was also a creeping anxiety she couldn't shake.

Because fame is temporary — to actually stand your ground in this industry, you need your work to carry you.

She looked at the script Love to Watch TV had sent over: female lead, a ruthless powerhouse archetype, S+ project.

One glance at the synopsis — the usual Domestic Entertainment xianxia romance drama, where even the strongest female lead ends up diminished the moment romance enters the picture.

She'd come out of Aurora's critically acclaimed drama.

Was she really going to follow that up with this?

She'd already cashed in on the triple bonus of a great drama, a great character, and a breakout hit.

Going back to a generic script now would be a straight-up resource downgrade.

And once you downgrade, climbing back up is brutal.

So Ouyang Changyi had moved past her earlier confusion and made a decision — she was going to fight for a role in I Am Live Streaming in the Infinite Flow.

As a motion capture actress.

The ensemble had female characters.

Even a supporting role or a cameo — she'd take it.

She knew the production was massive.

Just coordinating training with the full cast would eat up months, let alone actually joining the shoot.

When the film released, her contribution would be as a motion capture actress — with separate voice acting, and her face wouldn't even be on screen.

It would definitely hurt her commercial value, and the company would have a hard time approving it — she was Huajing's only cash cow right now.

But she wanted to try.

Ouyang Changyi knew this decision would look like rebellion to the company — going rogue right after hitting it big, showing her defiant streak.

But she'd admit it: she was picky.

She'd rather hold out and pick up scraps from Aurora than act in something bad.

She'd also prepared for the worst.

Try first — if Huajing decided she needed to be reined in and taught a lesson, she'd accept it.

It was the path she chose.

Her contract with Huajing had five years left.

She just hoped some fans would still remember her by then.

And if not — that was fine too.

She'd take care of herself, keep her face in good shape.

Fortunately, Huajing didn't say no.

Xi Xingfa told her to go for it.

So at the audition for I Am Live Streaming in the Infinite Flow, everyone turned and stared when a major star walked in.

She came?

Unspoken subtext: here to steal food from our table?

Actors who can work in front of the camera have plenty of jobs, right?

Some people aren't even professional enough to do voiceover work, and now they're competing with voice actors — and auditioning for motion capture on top of that?

Spreading yourself too thin?

Capturing facial expressions for 3D characters comes in two types.

The first: hand-sculpted, adjusting the parameters of a facial model to produce the right expression.

The second: like in Avatar, placing tracking dots on the actor's face so equipment can capture their movements in high precision.

I Am Live Streaming in the Infinite Flow used a hybrid of both — capture a rough pass first, then refine.

One of the research outputs from Sang Yu's earlier investments covered this, so cost wasn't a concern.

Mainly because Sang Yu couldn't stand watching silicone people on a big screen.

You're sitting there immersed in the lead character's joy and grief, and then you notice their eyebrows haven't moved once — like they've been Botoxed.

Does that make sense?

One look at the scale of the investment and the 'Aurora production' stamp, and every motion capture studio in the industry showed up — 3D had flooded Domestic Entertainment animation, so there was no shortage of people in this field.

The moment Ouyang Changyi walked in, every pair of eyes in the room shifted to her.

Her heart gave a little lurch.

In a flash, she figured out why everyone was looking at her like that.

She was here to compete fair and square.

She'd also prepared herself not to land the lead.

Supporting role...

Her heart gave one heavy thud.

No...

Nobody had warned her. · It was all about control, really.

If she got dragged online, she'd have no choice but to rely on the company.

If she made it through on merit, Huajing Entertainment could spin it into a controversy-driven buzz campaign — leak word that the other motion capture auditionees were unhappy she was there, then drop Ouyang Changyi's audition footage.

Built-in traffic.

If she didn't make it, Ouyang Changyi would learn that in this industry, 'I think I can' and 'I'll just do it' don't mean anything.

Beyond controlling the artist, it was also a way to probe Sang Yu's attitude toward Huajing.

If she got in, it meant the relationship between Aurora and Huajing had thawed.

Xi Xingfa's current play: this roundabout way of feeling things out.

Only — before Ouyang Changyi's audition results were even in, word came that Aurora Entertainment was relocating.

Sang Yu had bought a new building.