Source: European Parliament
EU copyright law provides performers with exclusive rights to authorise or prohibit the use of their performances by third parties. The rights protecting performances however do not extend to the use of an artist’s voice, likeness or other characterising features.
Under the General Data Protection Regulation[1] (GDPR) consent is one of the six legal grounds for lawful personal data processing. However, the controller may rely on legitimate interest where that interest prevails over the interests or rights of the data subjects.
The European Data Protection Board (EDPB) held that, subject to certain conditions, legitimate interest could be relied upon for the development of AI models.[2]
The Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act[3] sets out transparency obligations for AI systems that generate or manipulate content, including deepfakes.
Specifically, providers of AI systems generating synthetic audio, image, video or text content shall ensure that the outputs of the AI system are marked in a machine-readable format and are detectable as artificially generated or manipulated. Those rules aim at protecting the integrity and trust in the information ecosystem and mitigate the risk of impersonation.
Under the current multiannual financial framework, the MEDIA and Cross-sectoral strands of Creative Europe offer opportunities for applicants to submit projects that focus on helping the audiovisual and media sectors to foster their uptake of AI (including for dubbing), while mitigating the risks posed by this technology.
Since January 2025, five Nordic film festivals have been supported (under the project ‘NojSe’) to use AI in dubbing integrating new technologies in translation and subtitling while supporting the artistic community.
- [1] Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation), OJ L 119, 4.5.2016, p. 1-88.
- [2] EDPB, Opinion 28/2024.
- [3] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2024/1689/oj/eng.