Almost everyone uses AI tools on a daily basis — but what place do AI-generated outputs occupy in copyright law? Who is the author, and what is protected? This event explores current developments on both sides of the Atlantic. Professor Jane C. Ginsburg will examine how copyright law may respond to claims of proprietary rights in AI-generated works. She will explain why the human-centered foundation of U.S. copyright law supports the position taken by the Copyright Office and courts: AI-generated outputs are not considered 'works of authorship' unless a human has played a determinative role in their creation. Professor Caterina Sganga will discuss the European Union's evolving approach to regulating AI-generated content. Drawing on findings from the H2020 project reCreating Europe, she will highlight key policy recommendations for the treatment of AI outputs under copyright. She will also address Article 53 of the AI Act and the obligations it imposes on providers of general-purpose AI models (GPAIMs), particularly in relation to the general text and data mining (TDM) exception under Article 4 of the CDSMD. Finally, she will consider the latest developments in the third draft of the General-Purpose AI Code of Practice recently published by the European Commission.
Speakers:
Professor Jane C. Ginsburg is the faculty director of Columbia’s Kernochan Center for Law, Media and the Arts. She is a renowned authority on intellectual property law and a staunch defender of authors’ rights. She is also the author or co-author of casebooks on all five subjects, including International Copyright: U.S. and EU Perspectives (with Edouard Treppoz) and Copyright: Cases and Materials (9th edition) (with Robert A. Gorman and R. Anthony Reese). Ginsburg was a co-reporter for the American Law Institute’s Principles of the Law, Intellectual Property: Principles Governing Jurisdiction, Choice of Law, and Judgments in Transnational Disputes. She is a vice president of the Association Littéraire et Artistique Internationale, a Paris-based international organisation created to promote and defend authors’ rights, and president of its US chapter.
Caterina Sganga is a Professor of Comparative Private Law at Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna since August 2024. She joined Sant’Anna as an Associate Professor in October 2018. Prior to that, she was Assistant and later Associate Professor of Law at the Department of Legal Studies and Department of Economics and Business of Central European University (CEU, 2012-2018). She holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Private Law from Sant’Anna (2011), an LL.M. from Yale Law School (2009), and an LL.B. (2004) and J.D. (2006) from University of Pisa.