philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

Report on deepfakes: what the Copyright Office found and what comes next in AI regulation

December 18, 2024 - On July 31, 2024, the Copyright Office released part one of its Report on Copyright and Artificial Intelligence, specifically addressing the topic of digital replicas, or "deepfakes" — i.e., AI-generated video, image, or audio recordings that realistically but falsely depict an individual. The report is the result of a broad initiative to explore the intersection of copyright and AI, informed by a series of listening sessions and meetings with stakeholders, as well as more than 10,000 public comments from authors, artists, publishers, lawyers, academics, industry groups, and more.

The report's conclusions are stark: It finds that existing laws, in copyright and other intellectual property areas, are vastly insufficient to redress the harm posed by unauthorized digital replicas, which have the potential to threaten not only those in entertainment and politics, but private individuals, too. ...

 Most alarming, the report warns that digital replicas pose a danger to our political system and news reporting "by making disinformation impossible to discern." ...

The report found existing federal laws largely inapplicable. For example, it is black-letter law that copyright does not "protect an individual's identity in itself, even when incorporated into a work of authorship." Thus, while it might be a copyright violation to reproduce a copyrighted image or song that contains the copyright owner's likeness or voice, merely replicating someone's image or voice in a deepfake would not implicate copyright protections.

The Lanham Act "require[s] proof of commercial use and a likelihood of consumer confusion," so it is not useful in cases of harmful but personal and non-commercial deepfakes. ...

Meanwhile state laws were deemed uneven and often too narrow. ...

Based on this analysis, the Copyright Office did not mince words as to its conclusion. It stated in blunt terms: "new federal legislation is urgently needed." Looking ahead, the call for action is likely to accelerate congressional focus on an issue that has already sparked numerous pieces of draft legislation. ...

See the full story here: https://www.reuters.com/legal/legalindustry/report-deepfakes-what-copyright-office-found-what-comes-next-ai-regulation-2024-12-18/