Sometimes the best learning experiences are local. After a quick subway ride on the 2 to Borough Hall, I walked into Brooklyn Law School (BLS) for its third annual Sports Law Symposium, presented each year by the Brooklyn Entertainment Sports Law Students and Intellectual Property Law Association. As a speaker and attendee, I was impressed by the substance and caliber of the completely student-organized program. Here are my takeaways from this year’s symposium, Sports Tech: A Sports Lawyer’s Playbook.

With all of the hubbub surrounding the growing wave of generative artificial intelligence (AI) lawsuits, a recent court decision involving a generative AI-powered app has received surprisingly little attention, despite addressing issues that will be relevant in other, higher profile AI litigation.

The case, Kyland Young v. NeoCortext, Inc., involved a photo-editing app, called Reface, that uses generative AI technology to allow users to manipulate photos and videos, including to swap faces with celebrities within photos and videos. A celebrity sued, and, in rejecting the app developer’s motion to dismiss, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California held that the developer’s use of generative AI to superimpose user faces onto celebrity images could violate California’s right of publicity law. While this case is ongoing, Young illustrates the potential liability companies face when developing and using generative AI based on images and videos of celebrities.

Perkins Coie presented at Digital Hollywood’s “AI Bill of Rights, Ethics & the Law” Summit, a one-day virtual conference that seeks to advance the conversation around the establishment of a national regulatory policy for artificial intelligence (AI). The October 19 event highlighted the tension between efforts to unleash a once-in-a-generation burst of innovation, while simultaneously safeguarding against the dangers and risk inherent in complex and still developing technologies.

Over the course of the summit, panelists discussed a wide range of topics, including government regulation versus industry self-regulation, generative AI and intellectual property (IP) rights, human interaction with AI, and balancing the benefits and risks of deepfakes, among others.

Marc Martin moderated the panel “US and EU Regulation of AI: What To Expect and How To Prepare.” The panelists included Cass Matthews from Microsoft’s Office of Responsible AI and Benoit Barre, a partner at Le16 Law in Paris.

The generative AI revolution has arrived. Will copyright law snuff it out?

Despite all the excitement surrounding generative AI tools, a cloud darkens the horizon. These tools need to be trained on massive amounts of ingested content and, according to press reports, this content is often scraped without authorization from third-party websites, raising significant copyright law issues.

Hollywood is no stranger to artificial intelligence, or AI. Filmmakers have relied on AI for decades to enhance and accelerate their audiovisual productions. However, recent advances in CGI, VFX, and AI technology have combined to produce hyper-realistic, AI-generated digital humans that are both wowing audiences and alarming performers across the entertainment industry. AI has become a major sticking point in the stalled SAG-AFTRA negotiations, and celebrities like Tom Hanks find themselves battling a growing flurry of deepfakes they neither created nor authorized. Using AI to duplicate the voice or likeness of actors and musicians is testing the traditional boundaries of copyright and right of publicity law.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced new policies on September 14, 2023, regarding its use and acquisition of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, including facial recognition and face capture technologies. DHS also appointed Eric Hysen as the department’s first chief AI officer.

Last week, we attended (and one of us presented at) Digital Hollywood’s first ever AI Summit, a one-day virtual conference centered on the profound impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on the entertainment industry. The event shed light on the recent proliferation of generative AI and its transformative effects on content creation, distribution, and consumption.

The speakers discussed the challenges and potential opportunities that AI presents to the industry and what it means for the future of entertainment. Here are the key themes we heard at the summit:

Regulated gaming is booming in the United States. This is particularly true of newer forms of gambling, such as skill games, fantasy sports, and social casino games played on the internet and mobile applications. In fact, gaming is now legal in some form in 48 out of 50 states and the District of Columbia, and 36 states have legalized sports gambling since 2018. Gaming revenues in 2021 amounted to $53 billion with the American Gaming Association (AGA) reporting that commercial gaming revenue for Q1 2023 reached $16.6 billion.

This growth in remote gaming presents unique compliance challenges that may be exacerbated by the absence of face-to-face customer interactions, including new and enhanced money laundering risks and social responsibility obligations. To date, the web-based and app-based gaming sector has not been subject to significant enforcement by U.S. federal or state criminal or regulatory authorities. But, as rapid expansion of this sector of the gaming market continues, we should expect that criminal and regulatory scrutiny will also increase.