Danish culture minister Zenia Stampe yesterday presented revised proposals in the Danish parliament to introduce new rights to help performers, and people more generally, to block unapproved digital replicas that imitate their voice or likeness.
There has been much debate around the world about how to regulate AI-generated deepfakes and digital replicas, and whether new rights are required in law to provide effective protection. Proposals have also been made in US Congress for a new digital replica right, and both the US and Danish proposals could inform how similar new rights are evolved and introduced in other countries, including the UK.
The bill introduced into the Danish parliament yesterday builds on previous proposals from last year, and formally restarts efforts to introduce a digital replica right following a general election and change of government in Denmark earlier this year.
Stampe became culture minister in June after that change in government. She said yesterday that she sees protecting human creativity as “one of my most important tasks as Minister Of Culture”, adding “that’s why I’m very pleased that one of my first bills is about securing the right to one’s own body and voice”.
“With AI, you can create manipulated videos and images with just a few clicks and share them on social media”, she went on. This, she said, “can lead to misinformation and create doubt about what is real”. So, “now we’re stopping digital identity theft and helping artists whose livelihoods are being threatened”.
The proposals will amend Danish copyright law and make it illegal to make available to the public realistic digital imitations of a person's voice or likeness without getting that person’s consent.
There will be some exceptions to safeguard freedom of expression, including caricature, parody and criticism. Though those exceptions won’t apply where “imitation constitutes misinformation that could specifically cause serious danger to the rights or essential interests of others or could create a specific danger to life or property”.
In a post on LinkedIn, Jakob Plesner Mathiasen from Danish law firm Gorrissen Federspiel - who is also a director of record industry trade group IFPI Denmark - notes that “the provision covers both AI-generated deepfakes and imitations created using more traditional digital editing tools”, though “only applies to realistic imitations that create an obvious likelihood of confusion with the actual person”.
Although the new protections come via an amendment to Danish copyright law, Mathiasen explains that that protection “does not constitute a copyright or a related right”, instead it is “a separate protection of personal characteristics”.
Within the music industry, these protections should help artists stop the unapproved use of their voice and likeness in AI-generated content, but also provide a commercial opportunity. Because, with better legal clarity, artists who want to will be able to license the use of their voice or likeness in certain scenarios, whether that is to AI platforms directly, or their partners in the music business.
In terms of enforcement and timeline, minister Stampe added that “one of the main goals of the bill is to get the tech giants to take down manipulated content quickly, so that it causes the least possible harm”. Meanwhile, with “technology developing at lightning speed”, she said she hopes the new protections will come into effect by the start of next year.