Dr Alina Trapova presents her research at the CIPIL Spring Conference

Dr Alina Trapova, Lecturer at UCL Laws and Co-Director of the UCL Institute of Brand and Innovation Law (IBIL), was invited to present her research on copyright and generative AI at the CIPIL Spring Conference held at the University of Cambridge on 29 March 2025. The conference was chaired by The Right Honorable Sir Richard Arnold, Lord Justice of Appeal.

The conference, entitled 'Is AI Transforming IP?', sought to focus on what AI reveals about existing law; how AI might be changing IP (e.g. by altering the legal tests with which we have become familiar, as well as the assumptions that underlie them), and what the implications might be. Dr Trapova participated in the first session, 'AI Transforming Protected Subject Matter' where she discussed the eligibility of AI-generated content by copyright law. Here, she argued that copyright's requirement of originality necessitates the combination of a detailed conception and a controlled execution (proposed and detailed decades ago by Jane C Ginsburg), which AI-generated outputs could never satisfy.

In terms of answering the Conference questions, Dr Trapova concluded that what AI reveals about existing copyright laws is that they are (rightly) there for the benefit of human authors. In terms of how AI is changing copyright law, then in her view, this has been to introduce transparency obligations at both the input stage (in relation to any reliance upon the text and data-mining exceptions) and at the output stage, since those claiming authorship of a work might increasingly be expected to provide an explanation of their (human) contribution to the creation of the work.

IBIL will be re-visiting the topic of Copyright Law and AI in its Annual Copyright Lecture, entitled 'Copyright Law and AI: Time to Revisit Copyright Registration?' on 14 May 2025. 

More information:

• Find out more about the conference.
• Read Dr Trapova’s research profile.
• Sign up to attend the IBIL Annual Copyright Lecture.