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

Speakers:

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

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 8th, 2026, h. 17:00 – 19:00 
Room: Aula 15 – Via Parenzo 11, Department of Business and Economic Law, Luiss University, 00198 Roma. 
 

Please confirm your attendance at ileo@luiss.it (mandatory for externals to enter the Luiss Premises)

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

Abstract:

The European Parliament has adopted on 10 March 2026 its Report on Copyright and Generative AI. The so-called “Voss report” (by the name of its Rapporteur Axel Voss) emphasize 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, multi-linguistic 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 of creators which content are used to train the 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 expect result, as it heavily argues in favor of subjecting AI training to the exclusive control of right holders and to rely on the over-complicated and hardly operational opt out rules implemented in current EU law. The result of this way forward is the likely emergence of deals between a few (foreign) big tech companies with big right holder organizations, which could come at the expense of European starts ups lacking the capacities to cope with the transaction costs of such a complicated legal landscape, and European authors and performers who will struggle to get 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 as well as its cultural and linguistic diversity.

This ILEO seminar will critically examine the Report and examine its many proposals. Drawing on several works by members of ILEO, it will also examine possible reform proposals for the future not mentioned in the report, such as alternative workable “permitted but paid” mechanisms to remunerate creators more efficiently while at the same time providing the legal security and framework for European Generative AI technology to flourish.

About the Speakers:

Reinier van Lanschot is co-founder of Volt Nederland, together 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, a powerful force on the global stage. He describes this vision in his book “We Are Europe.” Reinier is a member of the defence committee SEDE, and the delegation for the 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 Associate Professor in Intellectual Property Law at University College Dublin’s Sutherland School of Law. His research focuses on digital aspects of copyright law, with a particular focus 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 copyright’s normative framework. Justin sits on the executive board 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 of Vytautas Magnus University (Lithuania).

Christophe Geiger is Professor of Law at Luiss Guido Carli University and Director as well as founder of ILEO. Previously to his Luiss appointment, he taught at the Centre for International Intellectual Property Studies (CEIPI) of the University of Strasbourg (France), which he leaded as Director General and Director of the Research Department for 11 years. In addition, he is 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 has been an affiliated senior research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition in Munich (Germany) from 2008 to 2022. He was President of ATRIP, the International Association for the Advancement of Teaching and Research in Intellectual Property from 2022 to 2024.

Ludovico Bossi is PhD Candidate in Law and Business and Member of ILEO at Luiss Guido Carli University. Previously, he graduated with full marks and press dignity at the University of Turin and the University of Nice. In 2026, he has been visiting researcher at the University of Oxford. In addition, he is an Italian-qualified lawyer with national and international expertise. He specializes in national, European, international, and comparative intellectual property (IP) law, with a special interest on the fair remuneration of authors and performers in copyright law.

Francesca Di Lazzaro is 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, starting from the analysis of the Sustainable Development Goals as a theoretical framework. She is also investigating how artificial intelligence can contribute to the achievement of 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 been appointed Academic Tutor for the Second Level Master in Competition and Innovation Law. She graduated summa cum laude in Law at Luiss Guido Carli University, with a thesis on comparative copyright law. In 2018, she obtained a Second Level Master in Competition and Innovation Law at Luiss Guido Carli University summa cum laude.