# CopyJudge: Automated Copyright Infringement Identification and Mitigation in Text-to-Image Diffusion Models

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.15278 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.15278/

## Key facts

- Cited by 4 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Robustness, privacy and adversarial aspects, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models.
- Builds on 40 of its 50 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 21 Feb 2025.

## Placed in

- Diffusion models / [Robustness, privacy and adversarial aspects](https://mlsanity.com/diffusion/robustness-privacy-and-adversarial-aspects/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 40)

- [Learning Transferable Visual Models From Natural Language Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.00020/) (2021)
- [High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.10752/) (2021)
- [The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Deep Features as a Perceptual Metric](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.03924/) (2018)
- [Adding Conditional Control to Text-to-Image Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.05543/) (2023)
- [GPT-4o System Card](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.21276/) (2024)
- [SDXL: Improving Latent Diffusion Models for High-Resolution Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.01952/) (2023)
- [Scaling Rectified Flow Transformers for High-Resolution Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.03206/) (2024)
- [Improving Factuality and Reasoning in Language Models through Multiagent Debate](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.14325/) (2023)
- [A Survey on LLM-as-a-Judge](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.15594/) (2024)
- [Machine Unlearning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.03817/) (2019)
- [ChatEval: Towards Better LLM-based Evaluators through Multi-Agent Debate](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.07201/) (2023)
- [Extracting Training Data from Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.13188/) (2023)
- [LLMs-as-Judges: A Comprehensive Survey on LLM-based Evaluation Methods](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.05579/) (2024)
- [Diffusion Art or Digital Forgery? Investigating Data Replication in Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.03860/) (2022)
- [Ablating Concepts in Text-to-Image Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.13516/) (2023)
- [A Survey of Machine Unlearning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.02299/) (2022)
- [Forget-Me-Not: Learning to Forget in Text-to-Image Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.17591/) (2023)
- [Text-to-image Diffusion Models in Generative AI: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.07909/) (2023)
- [Agent-as-a-Judge: Evaluate Agents with Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.10934/) (2024)
- [Understanding and Mitigating Copying in Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.20086/) (2023)
- [Many-Shot In-Context Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.11018/) (2024)
- [A Self-Supervised Descriptor for Image Copy Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.10261/) (2022)
- [On Memorization in Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.02664/) (2023)
- [Kandinsky: an Improved Text-to-Image Synthesis with Image Prior and Latent Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.03502/) (2023)
- [On Provable Copyright Protection for Generative Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.10870/) (2023)
- [Detecting, Explaining, and Mitigating Memorization in Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.21720/) (2024)
- [GroupDebate: Enhancing the Efficiency of Multi-Agent Debate Using Group Discussion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.14051/) (2024)
- [On the De-duplication of LAION-2B](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.12733/) (2023)
- [Copyright Protection in Generative AI: A Technical Perspective](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.02333/) (2024)
- [Finding NeMo: Localizing Neurons Responsible For Memorization in Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.02366/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 4 of 4)

- [Inherent and emergent liability issues in LLM-based agentic systems: a principal-agent perspective](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.03255/) (2025)
- [Neighbor-Aware Localized Concept Erasure in Text-to-Image Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.25994/) (2026)
- [The Persistence of Cultural Memory: Investigating Multimodal Iconicity in Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.11435/) (2025)
- [EDGE-Shield: Efficient Denoising-staGE Shield for Violative Content Filtering via Scalable Reference-Based Matching](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.06063/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Assessing whether AI-generated images are substantially similar to source works is a crucial step in resolving copyright disputes. In this paper, we propose CopyJudge, a novel automated infringement identification framework that leverages large vision-language models (LVLMs) to simulate practical court processes for determining substantial similarity between copyrighted images and those generated by text-to-image diffusion models. Specifically, we employ an abstraction-filtration-comparison test framework based on the multi-LVLM debate to assess the likelihood of infringement and provide detailed judgment rationales. Based on these judgments, we further introduce a general LVLM-based mitigation strategy that automatically optimizes infringing prompts by avoiding sensitive expressions while preserving the non-infringing content. Furthermore, assuming the input noise is controllable, our approach can be enhanced by iteratively exploring non-infringing noise vectors within the diffusion latent space, even without modifying the original prompts. Experimental results show that our automated identification method achieves comparable state-of-the-art performance, while offering superior generalization and interpretability across various forms of infringement, and that our mitigation method more effectively mitigates memorization and IP infringement with a high degree of alignment to the original non-infringing expressions.