Symposia

In collaboration with the Columbia-Sorbonne Alliance, the Kernochan Center's annual symposium examined the problems created by AI-generated deepfakes and analyzes domestic and international IP laws in search of potential solutions.

A full day of four panels exploring issues of copyright licensing, as they affect creators in different industries, featuring academics, industry experts, government and non-government officials.

Three panels of distinguished guests addressed the many questions about the derivative works right which remain in the wake of Warhol v. Goldsmith.

The Kernochan Symposium on Press Publishers' Rights looked at why the press is floundering, whether the 2019 EU Copyright Directive's sui generis IP right for press publishers offers an appropriate response to save the industry, and whether legislators should look to copyright or antitrust law for a solution.

The Kernochan Center Symposium, "NFTs: Future or Fad?" served as a guide to this growing, creative, and potentially lucrative, market, and discussed what role copyright can play in protecting these assets.

In 2020, due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, our Annual Symposium was replaced by a special issue of the Columbia Journal of Law, Media and the Arts, focusing on the ALI Restatement of Copyright Law.

The form authorship takes has never been static, but in the 21st century, the changes seem to be happening at lightning speed.  While forms of creative expression advance at a faster rate than the law, authors must grapple with how – and whether – copyright attaches to their creations.

"Owning Personality: The Expanding Right of Publicity" looked not only at the historical contours of the right of publicity, but also at its normative goals. Panels focused on how such a right is best crafted, including what uses should be exempted from its scope, and delved into other areas of the law implicated by publicity and privacy statutes.

Leading experts analyzed the gaps and flexibilities within copyright’s international framework – and posited how they might be navigated to support meaningful reform even in the absence of textual change.

The Kernochan Center's 2016 symposium took an in-depth look at the role international copyright treaties and free trade agreements (FTAs) play in copyright law. 

The Kernochan Center’s 2015 Symposium looked at copyright in areas often omitted from the traditional discussion such as tattoos, gardens, computer-generated works and conceptual art, as well as what authorship means in the 21st century.

The 2014 Symposium looked at the ongoing review of the Copyright Act, with a focus on the concerns of professional authors, artists and performers.  We considered what changes to law and practice would best benefit authors and encourage creativity.