The Voss Parliamentary Report on Copyright and Generative AI: A Wrong Step in the Right Direction?

Location:

Classroom 15 – Via Parenzo 11, Department of Business and Economic Law, Luiss University, 00198 Rome.

Speakers:

Christophe Geiger (Luiss University and Director of ILEO)
Ludovico Bossi (Luiss University and Member of ILEO)
Francesca Di Lazzaro (Luiss University and ILEO Member)

Special Guest Speaker: Reiner van Lanschot (Member of the European Parliament for Volt (Green/EFA Group))

Discussants: Sean Flynn (Geneva Graduate Institute and Director of the Center on Knowledge Governance). Bernd Justin Jütte (University College Dublin).

Date and Time: April 8, 2026, 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM
Room: Classroom 15 – Via Parenzo 11, Department of Business and Economic Law, Luiss University, 00198 Rome.

Please confirm your attendance at ileo@luiss.it (mandatory for external visitors to enter the Luiss premises)

Link: https://luiss.webex.com/luiss/j.php?MTID=m9c66e656aa2c46761dc15811d051edc9

Abstract:

On March 10, 2026, the European Parliament adopted its Report on Copyright and Generative AI. The so-called “Voss report” (named after its Rapporteur, Axel Voss) emphasizes the need to “promote the advancement of GenAI technologies and services in the public interest within the EU in order to safeguard Europe’s technological sovereignty, competitiveness, multilingual culture, and capacity for innovation while staying true to its values and ensuring that technological development supports sustainable economic growth, competitiveness, and innovation while facilitating broad access to AI technologies across the EU.”

Among the European values to be safeguarded, the Report rightly lists the principle of fair remuneration for creators whose content is used to train AI. However, despite some interesting points made on transparency, copyright governance (with a new important role granted to the EUIPO), exclusions of fully AI-generated works from protection, and a differentiated treatment of training for research and education, the means proposed in the document are likely not to deliver the expected result. This is because it strongly advocates subjecting AI training to the exclusive control of rights holders and relying on the overly complicated and hardly operational opt-out rules implemented in current EU law. This approach is likely to result in deals between a few (foreign) big tech companies and major rights-holder organizations. This could come at the expense of European startups, which lack the capacity to handle the transaction costs of such a complex legal landscape, as well as European authors and performers, who will struggle to secure their share from the licensing deals. Despite a very laudable and legitimate intention, the Report could ultimately lead to a “lose-lose” scenario for European technological development, its creators, and its cultural and linguistic diversity.

This ILEO seminar will critically examine the Report and explore its many proposals. Drawing on several works by ILEO members, it will also explore potential future reform proposals not addressed in the report. These could include viable “permitted but paid” alternatives to more efficiently compensate creators, while simultaneously ensuring the legal certainty and framework needed for European generative AI technology to thrive.

About the Speakers:

Reinier van Lanschot co-founded Volt Nederland with Laurens Dassen and has been a Member of the European Parliament since 2024. In Brussels, he works on issues related to European defense, the regulation of Big Tech, and European treaty reform. He advocates for a United States of Europe as a powerful force on the global stage. He outlines this vision in his book “We Are Europe.” Reinier is a member of the SEDE defense committee and the delegation for relations with the US.

Sean Flynn researches and teaches on the intersection of intellectual property, international law, and human rights. Professor Flynn designs and manages a wide variety of research and advocacy projects that promote the public interest in intellectual property and information law. Professor Flynn chairs the Global Expert Network on Copyright User Rights and is a founding member of the Global Congress on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest.

Bernd Justin Jütte is an Associate Professor of Intellectual Property Law at University College Dublin’s Sutherland School of Law. His research focuses on the digital aspects of copyright law, with a particular emphasis on copyright exceptions, transformative uses, and user rights. His recent work explores the interplay between fundamental rights and other foundational principles of EU law within the regulatory framework of copyright. Justin serves on the executive boards of the Association for the Advancement of Teaching and Research in Intellectual Property Law (ATRIP) and European Policy for Intellectual Property (EPIP). He is also a Chief Researcher at the Vytautas Kavolis Transdisciplinary Research Institute at Vytautas Magnus University (Lithuania).

Christophe Geiger is a Professor of Law at Luiss Guido Carli University and the Director and founder of ILEO. Prior to his appointment at Luiss, he taught at the Centre for International Intellectual Property Studies (CEIPI) at the University of Strasbourg (France), where he served as Director General and Director of the Research Department for 11 years. In addition, he is a Spangenberg Fellow in Law & Technology at Case Western Reserve University School of Law’s Spangenberg Center for Law, Technology & the Art (USA). He is a founding member of the European Copyright Society and EIPIN (the European Network of IP scholars), and served as an affiliated senior research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition in Munich, Germany, from 2008 to 2022. He served as President of ATRIP, the International Association for the Advancement of Teaching and Research in Intellectual Property, from 2022 to 2024.

Ludovico Bossi is a PhD candidate in Law and Business and a member of ILEO at Luiss Guido Carli University. Previously, he graduated with full marks and honors from the University of Turin and the University of Nice. In 2026, he was a visiting researcher at the University of Oxford. In addition, he is a qualified Italian lawyer with national and international expertise. He specializes in national, European, international, and comparative intellectual property (IP) law, with a particular focus on the fair remuneration of authors and performers in copyright law.

Francesca Di Lazzaro is a researcher at ILEO. She completed her PhD in December 2025. Her research aims to define what sustainable copyright is and how it can be achieved, beginning with an analysis of the Sustainable Development Goals as a theoretical framework. She is also exploring how artificial intelligence can contribute to achieving sustainable development. Francesca is a teaching assistant for Prof. Geiger's Intellectual Property Law course and Prof. Olivieri's Commercial Law course. Since 2018, she has also served as an Academic Tutor for the Second Level Master's in Competition and Innovation Law. She graduated summa cum laude in Law from Luiss Guido Carli University, with a thesis on comparative copyright law. In 2018, she earned a Second Level Master's in Competition and Innovation Law from Luiss Guido Carli University, graduating summa cum laude.