AI Law in Hollywood: Navigating Legal Complexities with Liliana Bakayoko
Insights from an AI Law Expert: Navigating the Legal Landscape of Artificial Intelligence in the Film Industry with Liliana Bakayoko.
Humans have the immense strength of the laws of nature on their side when confronting any AI-related problem. We should adapt and evolve to survive and live better. Humanity has great potential. AI should be viewed as a tool to realize it optimally.
Liliana Bakayoko
In the rapidly evolving realm of Artificial Intelligence (AI), legal considerations have become paramount in the Hollywood sphere. Enter Liliana Bakayoko, a trailblazing AI Law expert who is revolutionizing the way we navigate the legal intricacies of this cutting-edge technology.
Thank you for joining us today, Liliana. Recently, our magazine featured a discussion on ‘The Rise of AI in Hollywood: Boon or Bane.‘ It was only fitting to provide our audience with precise legal information from an expert specialized in AI.
Please introduce yourself and explain what inspired you to specialize in AI law?
I am a French international business lawyer with 20 years of expertise. My primary practice areas include business law, IT law, AI law, and international private law.
I have had the honor of receiving several international awards. I was bestowed with the prestigious title of Top International Business Lawyer of the Year by the International Association of Top Professionals, headquartered in New York. Additionally, I was named International Business Lawyer of the Year in France for 2024 at the Global Law Experts Annual Awards. Furthermore, I was designated Leading International Business Lawyer of the Year – Paris at the 2023 Leading Adviser Awards by Acquisition International. I have been selected by Advisory Excellence and Leaders in Law as an expert in international business law, exclusively recommended for France at the global level. Additionally, World’s Leaders Magazine featured me in its annual listing of ‘World’s Most Influential Women Leaders in Law, 2024, highlighting “exceptional women law experts possessing unique traits and ideologies that helped them to attain a successful stature in their legal sector”.
One of the most significant legal challenges worldwide today is encouraging the development of AI while preserving humanity from its dangers. Businesses need increasing support in navigating the evolving legal environment.
As a business lawyer, I enjoy anticipating legislation changes and helping clients adapt to new laws. My passion for innovative technology and devotion to my work as a lawyer allow me to provide appropriate assistance to my clients.
What resonances can be drawn from this historic Hollywood strike?
As artificial intelligence continues to evolve and streaming platforms develop, writers will have to fight other battles to defend their rights in the future.
The current status quo will still evolve. It would be preferable to establish consensual negotiation practices aimed at preventing reaching intolerable levels of dissatisfaction to avoid future strikes.
Life is a fight. Humans should not depart from the rules of nature, which require them to adapt to new environments to survive and constantly improve their abilities to achieve a better life. AI development should inspire writers to become more creative and innovative, mobilize their brains, and open their souls to make a difference.
Which advice would you offer to movie companies seeking to navigate the legal complexities of AI?
I first advise movie companies to pay close attention to and anticipate legislative changes and evolving court practices.
AI’s impact on the movie industry is multifaceted, and the legal norms are still evolving. Moreover, they are not changing at the same speed and in the same direction across countries. Multinational movie companies should increase their flexibility and capacity to adapt to cumulatively applicable diverse legal rules.
They should specifically address issues related to liability and intellectual property rights (ownership, licensing, and protection of AI-generated content).
How do you define and establish ownership rights for AI-generated content, particularly in cases where the creative input of human creators and AI algorithms overlap?
Determining ownership rights for partially AI-generated content might be tricky in cases where human creativity and AI algorithms overlap.
Under some conditions, AI algorithms and processes can be patented. AI models can also constitute trade secrets. However, these protections do not extend to the content produced by AI.
The existing legal norms aimed at determining authorship and ownership should adapt to the new AI realities. Multiple legal, ethical, and practical implications require balancing the interests of creators, users, and society. Legislative changes come slowly as policymakers and legal experts seek advice from AI scientists and researchers.
The solutions vary from country to country. Multinational movie companies should cope with the new, diversely evolving realities.
Some jurisdictions may recognize AI as a legal person capable of authorship. Other legal systems may attribute authorship to the entity that owns and operates the AI system, the human programmer, or the user who instructed the AI.
In such a diverse and still evolving legal environment, contractual clauses have become increasingly important. Movie companies can implement assignments of intellectual property rights, establish joint ownership systems, and initiate other new rights distributions.
In any case, they should closely monitor the evolution of the legal norms.
What legal frameworks and intellectual property laws govern the ownership and protection of AI-generated content, such as scripts, characters, and visual effects, in the movie industry?
Traditionally, intellectual property rights protect works created by humans. Therefore, in most legal systems, AI-generated content does not fall within the scope of legal protection. These rules apply to scripts, characters, and visual effects in the movie industry.
However, some legal systems envisage granting AI systems legal personality and label them patent inventors.
Generative AI uses vast amounts of preexisting data that includes copyright-protected content. AI developers must be attentive to mitigate intellectual property-related risks.
Can AI-generated content be copyrighted, and if so, how do you determine authorship and ownership rights for such content, especially when multiple parties are involved in its creation?
Currently, under French and U.S. law, human intervention is a requested condition for copyright protection.
Therefore, as it lacks human authorship, a work solely generated by AI falls into the public domain without copyright protection.
On the contrary, if a human creatively modifies AI-generated content, such intervention may give rise to authorship.
However, as mentioned, the data used by generative AI may include preexisting copyright-protected content. In such cases, AI-generated content implies infringement of copyright.
When multiple parties are involved in content creation, contractual clauses are particularly useful in establishing authorship and ownership rights. Agreements might determine whether ownership is granted to users or retained by the tool provider.
How do you address the moral and ethical considerations surrounding the use of AI-generated content in the movie industry, particularly in cases where the creative intent and expression of human creators may be diminished or compromised by AI algorithms?
Addressing the moral and ethical considerations surrounding the use of AI-generated content in the movie industry requires considering multiple issues related to the combination of creativity, ethics, and technology.
Maintaining human involvement and preserving the emotional and spiritual aspects of creativity is crucial. AI should remain a helpful tool controlled by human creators under a collaborative scheme.
Filmmakers, writers and other professionals who contribute to the production of AI-generated content should be compensated and acknowledged for their work.
Transparency and accountability to the public are of fundamental importance. Movie studios and filmmakers should be honest about the use of AI-generated content in their productions.
Film industry professionals can establish ethical standards and best practices to ensure AI-generated content is created and used appropriately.
What measures can be implemented to protect the intellectual property rights of creators and stakeholders in the film industry when using AI algorithms to generate content, such as watermarking, digital rights management, or contractual agreements?
Among the significant strategies for protecting intellectual property (IP) rights in the context of AI-generated content in the film industry, I would outline the following ones:
- Copyright Protection:
Copyrighting source code and models and treating confidential information as trade secrets. - Patent Protection:
Patenting computer-implemented inventions (CII). - Watermarking and Digital Rights Management (DRM):
Embedding watermarks in content and implementing robust DRM systems to control access. - Transparency:
Being transparent about AI usage, techniques, and data sources, and maintaining detailed records of AI- generated content. Under the European Union’s Artificial Intelligence Act, which should enter into force within months, any copyrighted material used to train basic artificial intelligence models used by tools like ChatGPT will have to be disclosed publicly. - Contractual Clauses:
Defining rights and duties through licensing agreements, outlining IP ownership in contracts, and entering into NDAs to protect confidential information.
Humans have the immense strength of the laws of nature on their side when confronting any AI-related problem. We should adapt and evolve to survive and live better.
Humanity has great potential. AI should be viewed as a tool to realize it optimally.
