Fair Remuneration of Creators, a Core Principle of Copyright: What Consequence for GenAI Regulation?

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About this event

The Fair Remuneration of Creators as a Core Principle of the Copyright System: What Consequences for the Regulation of Generative AI?

The fair remuneration of authors and performers is at the core of the rationales of copyright protection. Furthermore, the remuneration of creators benefits from strong fundamental rights justification at international and European level. Drawing on recent publications and ongoing research of the author, this paper argues that from the human rights framework and the core rationales of copyright protection, it is possible to extract a general right for creators to be fairly remunerated for the commercial exploitation of their work, unless the use benefits from a stronger justification by competing fundamental rights. The fair remuneration of creators thus stands as a fundamental and binding principle of copyright law. From this perspective however, exclusivity can only be considered as one of the available tools in copyright’s toolbox, meaning that if efficient remuneration is best reached with other non-exclusive mechanisms, then there should not be any objection from a policy and principle perspective.

In the context of the ongoing regulation of Generative AI, one of the core question is whether creators should be remunerated when they work is use by AI developers to train the Generative AI systems. Applying the fair remuneration principle, the paper answers positively but argues in favour of the establishment of a non-exclusive statutory remuneration right to the benefit of the creator, in order to take into account competing fundamental rights and the public interest in fostering ethical AI innovation for scientific and cultural advancement.  

This paper will draw upon the author’s previous research: ‘Elaborating a Human Rights-Friendly Copyright Framework for Generative AI’ (2024) 55 IIC 1129 and C Geiger, S Scalzini and L Bossi, ‘Time to (Finally) Reinstall the Author in EU Copyright Law: From Contractual Protection to Remuneration Rights’ (2025) Innovation Law and Ethics Observatory (ILEO) Research Paper Series No. 25-05, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=5330841.

About our speaker

Christophe Geiger is Professor of Law and Director of the Innovation Law and Ethics Observatory (ILEO) at Luiss Guido Carli University (Rome). Previously, he taught at the Centre for International Intellectual Property Studies (CEIPI) of the University of Strasbourg (France), which he lead as Director General and Director of the Research Department for 11 years. In addition, he is Spangenberg Fellow in Law & Technology at Case Western Reserve University School of Law’s Spangenberg Center for Law, Technology & the Art, a founding member of the European Copyright Society, has been an affiliated senior research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition in Munich (Germany) from 2008 to 2022, and President of the ATRIP, the International Association for the Advancement of Teaching and Research in Intellectual Property from 2022 to 2024.

Christophe specialises in national, European, international and comparative intellectual property (IP) law, acted as external expert for the European Parliament and the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) and has drafted reports on IP for European and international institutions. He has taught in several universities as visiting professor or guest lecturer across Europe, Asia and the USA (his latest appointment being Global Professor of Law at New York University in Fall 2023), and published numerous articles as well as authored and edited several volumes in the field of IP, including Criminal Enforcement of Intellectual Property: A Handbook of Contemporary Research (2012), Constructing European Intellectual Property: Achievements and New Perspectives (2013), Research Handbook on Human Rights and Intellectual Property (2015), Intellectual Property and the Judiciary (with Craig Nard and Xavier Seuba, 2018), Research Handbook on Intellectual Property and Investment Law (2020), and The Interface of Intellectual Property Law with other Legal Disciplines (2025). His new book, entitled Human Rights and Intellectual Property before the European Courts (with Elena Izyumenko) is forthcoming in 2025 with Edward Elgar Publishing.

This event will be chaired by Dr Alina Trapova.

Booking

This is an in person event only, so please do not register you interest if you are unable to be in London on 7 July. There is no fee for attending, but registration via the booking link is essential and places are limited.  

Schedule

14:50 Lecture room opens
15:00 Event begins
15:45 Q&A
16:00 Ends

Find out more about the IBIL Copyright and GenAI series here.