Copyright Law is in our sights as we reach our Season 1 finale.

Dr Andres Guadamuz is a Reader in Intellectual Property Law at the University of Sussex and the Editor in Chief of the Journal of World Intellectual Property. He is also the brain and pen behind the online publication ‘TechnoLlama’.
He joins us to answer some of our many questions about protection Copyright can - and cannot - offer artists and creatives.

What does "Fair Use" really mean? What constitutes copyright infringement? Do rulings in different countries mean anything abroad? And, crucially, what is a TechnoLlama?

Let's talk about death.

Have you considered how you want your digital remains (yes, that's the correct term) to be treated after you're gone?

Photos on Facebook, TikTok videos, LinkedIn profiles, demos, self-tapes, emails sent and received; everything you have ever uploaded or shared, whether personally or professionally, will digitally outlive you.

Dr Edina Harbinja is a Reader in Media and Privacy Law at the University of Aston. She is a pioneer and expert in her field and author of the book, "Digital Death, Digital Assets and Post-mortem Privacy".
She joins us to explain more about our digital remains, what is and is not protected by existing legislation and how we might be able to better protect our digital legacies.

And you can read "Digital Remains and Post-mortem Privacy in the UK: What do users want?" co-authored by Dr Harbinja at:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4813651

What does it look like to do business with clones in a way which puts the artist at the centre of the deal?

That's not just our question, but the question posed by Sam Radclyffe. Sam is an experienced entertainment and media rights executive, film producer, and entrepreneur. His answer is Galatea Holdings.

Galatea is a Digital Twin Library and Management Company, which proposes a different business model from the ones we've seen so far. The aim is to partner with artists and performers in shared ownership of your clone, ensuring that you retain control of your digital twin.

Sam shares his own observations of the industry, how it treats artists and Intellectual Property rights and how a fresh approach might help keep humans at the heart of the industry.

In this episode we take a look at very recent deals that tech giants have made with media and content platforms to train their AI models, with consent. We are asking: is the tide turning for training AI towards a licensing model, and away from crawling the web in the wild?

In recent months Open AI has made deals with at least 11 companies, to access their content for the purpose of training AI technologies. Those companies include Shutterstock, Le Monde, News Corp, The Financial Times, Vox Media and the Associated Press.

What might this mean for freelancers contracting with those companies in future ? And have the tech giants got themselves a cheap deal ?

The story of UVA (United Voice Artists) is a lesson in organising, not just for Creative Workers, but for everyone affected by AI - which is to say, Everyone.

Co-President, Patrick Messe, explains the urgent need for representation that brought together unions, guilds and other professional bodies, ahead of the EU AI Act. Their cross border collaboration ensured their voices were heard by politicians and legislators.

From France to Turkey, Poland to South America, they have focussed on their shared purpose of protecting Artists' rights, preserving human creativity and safeguarding the livelihoods of their members.

And the story isn't over yet.

To read the UVA Guidelines visit: https://unitedvoiceartists.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/UVA-AI-GUIDLINES.pdf

Should the creation of Deepfakes be a protected right under the banner of Free Speech?
How do existing laws balance our right to Free Speech with our Right to Privacy?
Dr Dimitri Kagiaros is Assistant Professor in Law at the University of Durham and an expert on the regulation of Freedom of Expression. He has written extensively on the topic and his work has influenced changes in the law to preserve freedom of expression.
Most recently, he has collaborated with our own Dr Mathilde Pavis on a (soon to be published) paper which examines whether freedom of expression can be interpreted to create a ‘right to’ deepfake people with - or, more controversially - without their consent.
So, what might the legal parameters be for content creators wishing to exploit Deepfake technology for artistic, commercial or even personal use?
We're so glad you asked...

This time, we get a philosopher's take on AI.

Jumbly Grindrod is a lecturer in philosophy at the University of Reading. He specializes in the philosophy of language and epistemology, which refers to the theory of knowledge itself.

Does it - or should it - matter to us whether AI or a human being is talking, writing or engaging with us?
What happens when we start regarding Artificial Intelligence as sentient or human?
And does generative AI bring anything new, in terms of questions, concepts or challenges, to a philosopher... or is it just a new shape given to age-old questions about what is real and what it means to be fully human?

In this episode, we select from the latest AI stories that have grabbed the headlines or slipped by stealth into our feeds.
From the miscommunication that made Mamma Mia actor, Sara Poyzer, trend on Twitter, to the discovery of Marvin Gaye's long lost demos, we look at legislation, regulation and how artists and creative performers are responding to the relentless pace of AI development.
When - if ever - is it acceptable to put words in someone's mouth? Can Voluntary Codes provide sufficient protection for human content creators? And could your digital avatar still be performing and creating, long after your final curtain call?