Photo Credit: Joe Planas
The Danish government is changing copyright law to ensure everybody has the right to their own features in an effort to combat deepfakes.
On Thursday, the Danish government said it would strengthen protections against the creation and propagation of deepfakes—digital imitations of people’s identities—with what it believes to be the first law of its kind. The country’s department of culture plans to submit a proposal to amend the current law for consultation, and then submit the amendment this fall.
The Danish culture minister, Jakob Engel-Schmidt, said he hopes the bill will send a message that every person has the right to their own appearance and sound. “In the bill, we agree and are sending an unequivocal message that everybody has the right to their own body, their own voice, and their own facial features, which is apparently not how the current law is protecting people against generative AI.”
“Human beings can be run through the digital copy machine and be misused for all sorts of purposes, and I’m not willing to accept that,” he explained.
The proposed law comes during rapidly developing artificial intelligence technology that has made it easier than ever before to create a convincing fake image, video, or song to mimic the features or style of another person.
Once approved, the changes to Danish copyright law will, in theory, provide people in Denmark with the right to demand that online platforms remove such content shared without their consent. Further, it will cover “realistic, digitally generated imitations” of an artist’s work or performance without prior consent.
Notably, the government says the changes will not affect parodies or satire, which would still be permitted under Danish copyright law. Engel-Schmidt says he hopes other European countries will follow Denmark’s example. He intends to use Denmark’s forthcoming EU presidency to share these goals with other European leadership.
Platforms that do not comply with the new law could be subject to “severe fines,” which Engel-Schmidt says could become a matter for the European Commission. For this reason, he believes tech platforms will take the matter and such violations “very seriously.”
