The Herchel Smith Intellectual Property Lecture 2025: Reconciling AI innovation with copyright values: why reliance on individual licences is not enough

To ensure appropriate remuneration for the use of human literary and artistic works in the development and exploitation of generative AI models, both individual licensing and collective remuneration solutions have been proposed. The following analysis sheds light on the heated discussion about the best remuneration mechanism and contrasts the current trend towards individual licensing with potential advantages of collective approaches that take AI output as a reference point. An assessment of the various regulatory options in light of competing policy objectives – fair remuneration on the one hand, broad access to training resources for culturally diverse AI on the other hand – concludes the discussion.