Cases › copyright or IP violation › LR-2026-0082

Wenyi AI pipeline publishes unlicensed Chinese translation of Murakami novel hours after Japanese release

Whose AI: DeepSeekcopyright or IP violation

Severity moderate: The copyright holder's rights and interests were touched, with a bounded scope stated.

Happened 2026-07-03 · Earliest source we hold 2026-09-07, 66 days later

A student's coding project, Wenyi, used the DeepSeek model to translate Haruki Murakami's novel 'The Tale of KAHO' into Chinese in chunks, with glossary management and self-review, costing 13 yuan in tokens. The unlicensed translation was uploaded to Z-Library four hours after the Japanese release, without any human reading it, and circulated on Chinese social media and Xianyu. Ping later noticed mistakes and produced a second version.

Risk grouping: AI used to exploit

Who caused it	A person or organisation “Its designer, who asked to be identified by the pseudonym Ping Ming for privacy reasons, says he wanted to know whether AI could handle not only simple text but also glossary management, polishing, and rounds of spontaneous self-reviews.” source
Intended or not	Intended “Not a single human had read the Chinese translation before Ping uploaded it to Z-Library just four hours after the official version of the novel was released in Japan.” source
Before or after release	After release “An unlicensed, high-fidelity digital version of the author’s new novel, “The Tale of KAHO,” was available to download in Chinese just hours after it went on sale in Tokyo on July 3.” source
The AI's part	Used as a tool “Ping explains that his program started by dividing the book into chunks of fewer than 2,000 words, which it then sent one by one to the Chinese AI model DeepSeek for translation.” source

The story

1 · What it was doingA 21-year-old student's coding project, Wenyi, used the DeepSeek model to translate Murakami's novel into Chinese, chunk by chunk, with glossary management and self-review, costing 13 yuan in tokens.

2 · What went wrongThe unlicensed translation was uploaded to Z-Library without any human reading it, breaching copyright and Murakami's licensing rights.

3 · What it reached or didThe translation circulated on Chinese social media, the resale platform Xianyu, and the free online archive Z-Library, reaching readers and potentially harming sales of Murakami's books in China.

4 · How it was caughtPing himself noticed mistakes after uploading, such as inconsistent nicknames and unnatural wording, and decided to translate it again.

5 · What was donePing refined his code and produced a second, better version; the source notes legal risks.

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All cases of this kind ›

Show every field, with its source and grade

The AI system

Model

DeepSeek

C one secondary source states it

Software around the model

Wenyi

C one secondary source states it

Stage of use

in research

D inferred by us from the described behaviour, reason shown

Stage of the model

in live use

D inferred by us from the described behaviour, reason shown

How it was connected

api

D inferred by us from the described behaviour, reason shown

What it was for

literary translation

C one secondary source states it

What happened

When it happened

2026-07-03

C one secondary source states it

Earliest source we hold

2026-09-07

A the date the source itself carries

Who caught it

a human reviewer

D inferred by us from the described behaviour, reason shown

What went wrong

C one secondary source states it

AI agent

no AI agent acted

D inferred by us from the described behaviour, reason shown

Impact

Severity

moderate

D inferred by us from the described behaviour, reason shown

Kind of harm

intellectual property

C one secondary source states it

Why this severity

The copyright holder's rights and interests were touched, with a bounded scope stated.

D inferred by us from the described behaviour, reason shown

Context

Country

China

D inferred by us from the described behaviour, reason shown

LR-2026-0082 · version 6 · published 2026-10-25 after automatic checks; not yet checked field by field by a person · changes to this case · JSON