2025: Kernochan Center Year in Review

December, 2025

We are excited to share developments at the Center, the work we are doing, and the extensive programming we have brought to Columbia in the past year. We share our events on Instagram @kernochancenter and on LinkedIn. Please follow us if you would like to stay up to date on everything we are doing.

The Center hosted the third annual Art Law symposium, “The New Deal in Art: Structuring Agreements for a Billion-Dollar Industry,” on February 21. Practitioners, scholars, and students gathered in person to explore how contracts have evolved to meet the needs of the art market. Cathy Kaplan ’77, adjunct professor at Columbia Law, moderated the first panel featuring Dickinson Wright’s Paul Bain; photographer Gail Albert Halaban; Nina Levent, Founding Director of Sapar Contemporary Art Gallery, photographer Jarod Lew, and Fieldfisher’s Pierre Valentin to discuss the role of contracts in the art market for the individual artist, collectors, and gallerists. 

Center Executive Director Pippa Loengard and Professor Kaplan moderated the second panel which approached contracts from an institutional perspective with comments from Stephanie Wiles, Director at the Yale University Art Gallery; Philipp Nuernberger, co-founder of Art Market Partners; and Kaila Brooks, Director of Programs and Exhibitions at NXTHVN.

The video of this symposium is available on our website. 

Center Board of Advisors member and General Counsel of the Motion Picture Association Karyn Temple ’97 was the alumnae honoree and keynote speaker at the Columbia Law Women's Association (CLWA) 5th Annual Ruth Bader Ginsburg Gala on March 4. Pippa Loengard introduced Temple who then spoke on the importance of the creative industries to the American economy and how her Columbia education has allowed her to support these artists. 

The Spring IP Speaker Series began on February 3 with Lindsay Korotkin, Partner at ArentFox Schiff, and Dr. Marlena Jankowska, Associate Professor at University of Silesia, Katowice (Poland). Korotkin discussed areas where fashion and U.S. intellectual property law intersect and notable fashion intellectual property cases. Dr. Jankowska provided a historical overview of legal protection for fashion designs from an international perspective, highlighting the current legal schemes in the United States, French, Italy, Germany, and Poland. 

On February 17, Professor Itsuko Yamaguchi, Professor of International Law and Policy at the University of Tokyo, lectured on privacy laws and generative AI. She described international privacy protections and the problems posed by generative AI before proposing a ‘Tokyo Effect’ that would provide individuals with global privacy protection through parallel privacy laws in domestic jurisdictions. Professor David Pozen commented on her presentation, comparing the Brussels effect - the idea that EU regulations are often adopted worldwide because companies adapt to them in order to do business there - and the Tokyo Effect. 

On March 3, the Kernochan Center launched the Visual Arts Infringement Database. Generously funded by a gift from Arnold D. Burk ’55, the Database seeks to educate lawyers, law students, academics and members of the artistic community about issues relating to copyright and the visual arts. Inspired in part by the Music Copyright Infringement Resource, the Database presents selected visual art infringement cases and displays images of the works in dispute, some of which have likely not been seen outside of court records. The Center hopes this website will be of use to professors teaching copyright and copyright students as well as contribute to and enhance copyright scholarship and research in this area. Members of Arnold Burk’s family attended the launch. Megan Noh, Partner and Co-Chair of Pryor Cashman’s Art Law Group, introduced the website and illuminated the ways in which it could be used by students, practitioners, and artists. 

On March 10, Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves LLM ’98 of the United States Court of International Trade gave a talk on the history and role of the Court of International Trade in the federal court system and the body’s adjudication of customs and international trade litigation, including tariffs. Judge Choe-Groves also described her prior work negotiating the intellectual property portions of free trade agreements on behalf of the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. She concluded by discussing recent intellectual property cases before the Court of International Trade. 

Peter Menell, Koret Professor of Law at UC Berkeley Law gave the 37^th Annual Horace S. Manges Lecture on March 24. Professor Menell’s lecture, entitled “On the Devolution of Copyright Scholarship,” advanced his theory that the integrity of copyright scholarship has been compromised as the copyright academic community has become increasingly “copyleft” and vulnerable to influence from Big Tech. He traced the evolution of the differing views of copyright through legislation such as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, as well as litigation over digital distribution of music and the proper dividing line between “permission culture” and fair use. He argued that an academic/advocate hybrid emerged wherein law professors began to represent clients whose views on copyright the professors valued. Academics also increasingly submitted amicus briefs to the Supreme Court in copyright cases, though “copyleft” academics remain at odds with the Supreme Court’s holdings. Menell observed that as a result, interpretive scholarship is declining; Menell concluded that academics must be cognizant of both actual conflicts and the appearance of conflicts. He warned of the unintended privacy consequences of “copyleft” scholars’ alignment with Big Tech and the entrenchment of copyleft’s ideas in the legal academy, despite such ideas not gaining much credence outside of academia. This copyleft-favored ecosystem, he posited, jeopardizes the growth of more middle of the road copyright scholars. An article based on his lecture will be published in upcoming volumes of The Columbia Journal of Law & the Arts. 

The Spring IP Speaker Series continued on March 31 with Matthias Leistner, Professor of Private Law and Intellectual Property Law at Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU) Munich, and Dennis Yi Tenen, Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. Professor Leistner discussed his forthcoming paper, The Flattening of Creative Industries: A Closer Look at Copyright Protection of AI-Based Subject Matter, co-authored with Rebecca Jussen. Professor Leistner illustrated the current legal scheme in Europe for protecting AI-produced content and considered comparative developments in protecting AI-outputs in the United States, Japan and China before examining policy considerations of protecting AI-outputs. Professor Tenen commented on the ways in which human creativity aided by artificial intelligence is not so different from traditional human creativity as both can rely on ‘mass collaboration,’ despite conventional beliefs that human creativity is usually a sole endeavor. He gave examples of Earle Stanley Garner, author of the Perry Mason novels, who used an algorithm to determine the plots of his novels well before generative AI as well as television and film productions that are developed by creative teams. Professor Leistner and Professor Tenen concluded their presentations by engaging in a dialogue about collaborative creativity and copyright. 

On April 1, Ray Dowd of Dunnington, Bartholow & Miller and Daniel Schnapp of Dentons discussed litigating Nazi-looted art claims abroad. Dowd proffered his theory of why Nazi-looted artworks should not fall within the acquisitive prescription doctrine and that European courts should remain open to Nazi-looted art claims to remain compliant with the Hague Convention. He explained legislative developments in this area and recent case law. Schnapp fleshed out the argument of why statutes of limitations and laches defenses may be applicable to Nazi-looted art cases.

The Spring IP Speaker Series concluded on April 8 with Simone Procas ’94, VP and Assistant General Counsel for The New York Times Company, and Stan Adams, Lead Public Policy Specialist at Wikimedia Foundation discussing generative AI and the news media. Procas and Adams discussed the fair use doctrine and the ways in which both The Times and Wikimedia use the fair use doctrine, as well as the doctrine’s application to generative AI and how media organizations should approach the use of generative AI. 

This summer, we welcomed Bhamati Viswanathan as a Non-Resident Fellow. Professor Viswanathan will work on her scholarship examining gender disparities in the disposition and defense of rights in various areas of intellectual property and assist the Center in carrying out its work. In addition to her work at the Center, she is also a Senior Visitor at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. Professor Viswanathan is the author of Cultivating Copyright: How Creative Industries Can Harness Intellectual Property to Survive the Digital Age. Prior to joining the Center, she taught at New England Law - Boston, Roger Williams University School of Law, and the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Viswanathan holds a SJD from University of Pennsylvania Law School, a JD from University of Michigan Law School, and a BA, cum laude, from Williams College.

On August 26, the Center hosted its annual “Meet the Kernochan Center” welcome event for students new to CLS. We again had a record turnout with approximately 75 students attending to learn about opportunities the Center provides for the CLS community. Dozens have already followed up to learn how to be research assistants or obtain internships during their time at the Law School. 

On September 30, the Kernochan Center hosted Alumni in Sports, Entertainment and Media featuring Lily Henderson ’24, Associate at Kirkland & Ellis, Linna Chen ’10, Senior Legal Counsel at Spotify, Jachele Vélez’17, Deputy General Counsel for the WNBA, and Vera Zlatarski ’99, General Counsel at Carnegie Hall. The panelists discussed their career paths and gave constructive advice, particularly how students can position themselves for careers in arts and entertainment even if their first jobs are not in the industry. 

The Kernochan Center kicked off its fall speaker series with a packed house with Noah Ornstein ’04 on October 7 to discuss turning your law degree into entrepreneurial success. Ornstein shared his career path, which included a partnership in Big Law, to his current role as CEO of Jayaram Law, but spoke about how entrepreneurial endeavors (successes and failures) have proven to him to be extremely rewarding. He also provided advice to students seeking non-traditional legal careers.

On October 15, Columbia’s Knight First Amendment Institute Deputy Litigation Director Katie Fallow and Staff Attorney George Wang discussed recent attacks on the free press. Fallow and Wang detailed three areas in which press freedoms have been challenged: press access to spaces, particularly the Trump Administration’s banning of the Associated Press from the White House press pool; media settlements with Paramount and ABC, and jawboning (government interference with private companies, such as social media platforms, usually through soft power), including the FCC Chair’s comments regarding Jimmy Kimmel.

On October 24, the Kernochan Center hosted its annual symposium: “Deepfakes: In Search of Global Solutions” in collaboration with the Columbia-Sorbonne Alliance. The symposium featured scholars, industry leaders, and practitioners from the United States, the European Union, and the Commonwealth examining the problems created by AI-generated deepfakes and analyzing domestic and international IP laws in search of potential solutions.

The first session considered the adequacy of current IP frameworks to address deepfakes through three panels. On the first panel, Makena Binker Cosen ’25,an associate at Kirkland & Ellis, demonstrated the process of making a deepfake of a popular singer. Center Faculty Co-Director Jane Ginsburg evaluated whether this deepfake would infringe the singer’s rights under current copyright, trademark, and right of publicity law, concluding that existing laws are not sufficiently protective. 

On the second panel, Jennifer Rothman, Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, explored the definition of a deepfake and the harms they can cause before proposing a taxonomy of deepfakes. Professor Rothman then examined right of publicity laws, other state law claims, current and proposed federal legislation, and their respective limitations. Ben Sheffner, SVP & Associate General Counsel, Law and Policy at the Motion Picture Association, detailed the NO FAKES Act and why this legislation is properly tailored to address the deepfakes problem without impinging on creative industries.

Introducing an international element, Valérie Laure Benabou, Professor of Law at the University of Paris-Saclay/UVS, explained the European and French legal mechanisms to address deepfakes, such as criminal law, EU regulations such as the AI Act and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), intellectual property law (including moral rights), and personality rights. Graeme Austin LLM ’98, JSD ’01, the Chair in Private Law at Victoria University of Wellington (NZ), explained how Commonwealth nations approach these issues through the doctrines of defamation, breach of confidence, passing off, consumer protection/media regulation, and privacy rights.

On the third panel, Célia Zolynski, Professor of Private Law at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, and Olivier Sylvain, Professor of Law at Fordham University School of Law considered transparency obligations. Professor Zolynski explained how while the EU AI Act imposes transparency requirements on deepfakes with a risk of manipulation, governments must look at whether transparency mechanisms are viable avenues for combatting the harms of deepfakes. Professor Sylvain commented from a United States perspective and highlighted First Amendment issues with transparency regulations. 

The second session examined potential enforcement and liability mechanisms through three panels. On the first panel, Edouard Treppoz, Professor at the University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and former visiting professor at CLS, and Graeme Dinwoodie JSD ’89, University Distinguished Professor at Chicago Kent College of Law, explained that deepfakes often cross jurisdictional borders and proposed how courts in the EU and the Commonwealth may approach inter-jurisdictional relief. Professor Treppoz examined how the EU would approach jurisdictional issues, choice of law issues, and the appropriate scope of injunctive relief when adjudicating the personality rights doctrine or applicable EU regulations.

On the second panel, Center Faculty Co-Director Shyam Balganesh, Professor Benabou, Professor Treppoz and Professor Austin considered AI platforms and developers’ derivative liability for deepfakes. Professor Balganesh examined Section 230 liability (42 U.S.C. § 230) and the recently enacted TAKE IT DOWN Act and theorized how the two statutes may interact when enforced. He also considered the effectiveness of the Federal Trade Commission’s enforcement power and recent legislative developments, such as Tennessee’s ELVIS Act. Professor Benabou and Professor Treppoz commented from an EU and French perspective, and Professor Austin commented from a Commonwealth perspective.

On the third panel, David Louk, who is Deputy City Attorney at the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office but spoke in his personal capacity, described the scope of the problem of deepfake non-consensual intimate imagery, federal and state laws addressing this problem, and both practical and legal enforcement challenges. Professor Zolynski, Professor Treppoz and Professor Rothman provided commentary.

A recording of the Symposium is available on the Center’s website. The Columbia Journal of Law & the Arts will publish its annual symposium issue featuring articles from the symposium’s panelists.

On November 6, Toby Butterfield, Partner at Moses Singer, and Stuart Levi, Partner and co-head of Skadden’s Blockchain and Digital Assets Group, discussed the latest developments in AI and intellectual property, including copyrightability of AI-generated works, Bartz v. Anthropic PBC, 791 F. Supp. 3d 1038 (N.D. Cal. 2025) and Kadrey v. Meta Platforms, Inc., 788 F. Supp. 3d 1026 (N.D. Cal. 2025).

On November 11, the Kernochan Center hosted alumni whose practice encompasses patent and trade secret law and who happen to also be leaders in the American Bar Association (ABA). The panel featured Rob Lytle ’91, Assistant General Counsel at Microsoft and Chair of the ABA Section of IP Law; Paul Morico ’90, Partner and Sector Chair of Energy IP at Baker Botts and Vice-Chair of the ABA Section of IP Law; and Josh Simmons ’10, Partner in Intellectual Property at Kirkland & Ellis and Chair Elect of the ABA Section of IP Law. The panelists shared details about their areas of practice and described the various ways students can enter the field.

On November 20, the Kernochan Center hosted the 50th Anniversary Celebration of The Columbia Journal of Law & the Arts at Kirkland & Ellis. Amanda DiSantos ’12, and Kernochan Center board members Rudy Carmenaty ’90, David Leichtman ’96, and Hillel Parness ’95 served on the planning committee. Dean Daniel Abebe shared remarks and reflections on the storied history of the Journal. The Kernochan Center and JLA are grateful to Kirkland & Ellis LLP and Davis Wright Tremaine LLP for their generous support of this event. 

In mid-December, the Kernochan Center will co-host the Third Annual US-Asia Comparative Copyright Law Symposium alongside Waseda University School of Law and Hong Kong University School of Law. The symposium will be held in Tokyo at Waseda University on December 12-14 and build off last year’s symposium through continued examination of the intersection of copyright law and AI. Professor Balganesh will moderate a panel and Professor Ginsburg will give a talk at the conference. 

Finally, we want to recognize some of our most generous donors. While we do make a note of their generosity on our donor sheet each year, we have never formally acknowledged them in the body of this letter. We have decided to do so this year because these sustaining members of our community have shown deep commitment to the Center even in years when many have chosen to prioritize other organizations. Sarah Kernochan, Catherine Green ’93, Frank Politano ’74 and the Family of Walter Minton ’82 have all left a lasting mark on our programming, our student initiatives, our policy influence, and our research and writing. 

Jane Ginsburg delivered the Melville Nimmer Lecture at UCLA Law School in February, 2025; titled Humanist Copyright, it focused on human authorship from the Renaissance to present issues concerning AI-generated outputs, and was published in the Journal of Free Speech Law. She gave lectures on AI and copyright at the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Rome and at the European University Institute (Florence) in May; at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (Barcelona) in June, and at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich in November. In October, she served as the General Reporter for the topic of initial ownership of copyright at the annual Congress of the Association Littéraire et Artistique Internationale (ALAI). Prof Ginsburg gave lectures on IP and Deepfakes at the University of Paris-Sorbonne and at the Universidad Carlos III (Madrid) in March, and at the Università del Salento (Lecce). Her article on Deepfakes in Domestic and International Perspective, co-authored with Prof. Graeme Austin, was published at 48 Colum. J. L. & Arts 297 (2025), https://journals.library.columbia.edu/index.php/lawandarts/article/view/13868/7665. Prof Ginsburg was invited by the French presidency to participate in a panel on copyright at the AI Summit in Paris in February, and has advised the Conseil Supérieur de la propriété littéraire et artistique on matters regarding AI and copyright. She will be giving a lecture on AI training and fair use at Waseda University Law School in December. 

Shyam Balganesh gave talks on AI and copyright at the National University of Singapore (NUS) and the National Law School of India in July. In June, he co-organized and hosted the Tenth Annual Copyright Scholarship Roundtable, the leading scholarly conference on copyright in the country. His new paper examining the institutional design of intellectual property law titled The Eunomics of Intellectual Property, will be published in the Yale Law Journal later this year, and is available here.

Pippa Loengard continues her work on copyright policy as Chair of the ABA’s Copyright Reform Taskforce which has sent letters to Congress advocating for anti-piracy legislation, attention to the current needs of the United States Copyright Office and transparency in AI large-learning models. She also continues to serve on the Intellectual Property Law Section’s (ABA-IPL) governing Council. She is a member of the Entertainment Committee of the New York City Bar Association. She has spoken at various conferences including the American Society on International Law Annual Meeting (on legal issues surrounding AI and the visual arts); the ABA-IPL Annual Meeting (Copyright Roundup); the Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property Summer IP Institute (Fair Use Post-Warhol); and the Center for Art Law’s Summer School.

Caitlin McGrail was elected Chair of the American Bar Association’s Copyright Legislation Committee and is now serving on the New York City Bar Association’s Art Law Committee and the Executive Committee of the United States chapter of the Association Littéraire et Artistique Internationale (ALAI-USA). She also drafted the United States’ ALAI report, a response to the Copyright Office’s Notice of Inquiry regarding the Copyright Claims Board, and co-delivered a presentation on copyright to the Center for Art Law’s 2025 Summer School.