Michael Murray from the University of Kentucky, J. David Rosenberg College of Law, explores how contemporary generative artificial intelligence tools have revolutionized the creation of images, videos, and audio. In turn, this allows users to “fake” the appearance, voice, performances, and actions of real people with unprecedented speed and ease, leading to state and federal legislative actions.
Legislating Generative Artificial Intelligence: Can Legislators Put a Box Around Pandora?
Canvas, Issue 21
This month, we cover deepfake legislation, Anthropic’s $1.5B copyright settlement, the shutdown of Christie’s digital art department, and the $136 million Sotheby’s Karpidas sale.
Legal Personhood for Artwork
Associate Professor Sergio Alberto Gramitto Ricci from Hofstra University’s Maurice A. Deane School of Law presents a compelling framework for artwork legal personhood, arguing that art itself deserves fundamental rights. His analysis addresses the unjust monetization of indigenous cultural pieces and artwork’s social significance. Central to his argument: each artwork possesses distinct social existence independent of creators and owners—potentially reshaping our legal paradigm to focus on the art itself rather than artists and proprietors.
Canvas, Issue 20
This month’s issue includes artwork legal personhood proposals, federal arts policy shifts, restitution cases, exhibition censorship, declining sales, new E.U. import regulations, and AI authentication.
Berkeley Art, Law, and Finance Project: “Globalizing the Protection of Cultural Heritage” at IMT Lucca
The Berkeley Art, Law, and Finance Project will participate in “Globalizing the Protection of Cultural Heritage” at IMT Lucca, June 23-26, with Professor Sonia Katyal presenting her work “The Spectrum of Digital Repatriation” and Delia Violante presenting the Berkeley Art, Law, and Finance Project.
Canvas, Issue 19
This month, we cover policy upheaval—Trump halts grants and proposes eliminating the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as the art market’s mixed signals and cultural property law.
Takings, Private Property & World Cultural Heritage
Anne-Marie Carstens, Associate Professor, University of Baltimore School of Law, examines Octagon Earthworks, a 2,000-year-old indigenous site, to highlight the tension between private property rights and the World Heritage Convention’s requirements for cultural “authenticity” and “integrity”, and questions about using eminent domain for aesthetic and cultural heritage purposes.
Berkeley Art, Law, and Finance Project | Sonia Katyal at Rhizome World
Professor Sonia Katyal join’s UCLA professor and artist Lauren Lee in a panel regarding surveillance, automation, and algorithmic living through the lens of trademark law, branding and advertising.
Tax Law as Muse
Co-authors Brian Soucek, UC Davis Law, and Jennifer C. Lena, Columbia, discuss taxation of the arts through a case in which Chicago officials targeted clubs hosting rock, hip-hop, country, and DJ performances, arguing these genres weren’t part of the “fine arts” and thus not tax-exempt.
Iconology of Justice. Rhetoric and Law in The Calumny by Sandro Botticelli
In his recent article, Iconology of Justice. Rhetoric and Law in The Calumny, University of Padova Law professor Pablo Moro presents a rhetorical analysis of The Calumny by Sandro Botticelli, a tempera painting created between 1494 and 1497. Moro explores how Botticelli uses classical concepts of justice and trial to depict an unjust legal process, highlighting the absence of truth in judgment