Technology and Rights

On 10 December 2024, Dr Abigail Rekas will present a paper titled ‘The Challenges of Tech Enabled Legal Education’ to be delivered at a workshop on AI & the Law, City University of Hong Kong, December 2024.

On 9 December 2024, Dr Abigail Rekas will host a Q&A for the filmmakers of the documentary Grand Theft Hamlet, a documentary about two actors who mounted a full production of Hamlet inside the video game world of Grand Theft Auto Shot entirely in-game.

The Technology and Rights cluster recently made a submission to a consultation from the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment in response to a policy questionnaire from the Hungarian Presidency of the EU Council on the relationship between generative Artificial Intelligence and copyright and related rights. The submission can be accessed here.

On 20 November 2024, Dr Maria O’Brien presented her research at the School of Law Staff Seminar Series. Her research talk was entitled “Screen Credits and Tax Breaks: Casting Light on Film & TV Incentives in Ireland and the EU” and is based on her forthcoming monograph (2025) with Palgrave MacMillan’s series “New Directions in Cultural Policy Research’.

On 1 November 2024 Dr Abigail Rekas, Xinpeng Liu and MingZhu Zhang were invited to participate in the AI Art Assembly at Beta Festival. Dr Rekas served as a subject matter expert partnered with a cultural industry expert, and Xinpeng Liu and MingZhu Zhang were conversants.

On 14 October 2024, Dr Abigail Rekas and Dr Maria O’Brien organised the conference Game Changers: the Business of Games – A Legal Perspective, at University of Galway, sponsored by the College of Business, Public Policy and Law, as part of the Thinking Beyond event series, J.E Cairnes School of Business and Economics and the School of Law at University of Galway jointly hosted an interdisciplinary gathering on the business and legal aspects of the digital games industries. This event featured talks by international and local speakers, roundtables on aspects of interest to industry and academics, together with built-in opportunities for developing research and industry networks. Dr. Rekas delivered a paper, co-authored with Matt Voigts called “Saving the Game” and Dr. O’Brien delivered a paper called “Ireland’s new Digital Games Tax Credit: the role of the state in supporting the games industry.”

On 3 October 2024, Dr Abigail Rekas was an invited panelist for the World Conference of Screenwriters for the panel ‘Artificial Intelligence: A Conversation on what’s being done to protect screenwriters, and what we need to do next’ along with representatives from the Writers Guild of America, Canada and the Federation of Screenwriters in Europe.

On 27 September 2024, Raisul Islam Sourav presented a paper titled ‘Debunking the Myth of Modern Technology and Enhanced Access to Justice’ at the Lawtomation Days Conference 2024: Computing the Law, Regulating the Algorithm: The Transformative Power of Digital Ecosystems at IE University, Madrid, Spain.

On 11 September 2024, Xinpeng Liu gave a presentation titled “Copyright in AI Era Assessing the Copyrightability and Authorship of AI-generated Work” at the European Policy for Intellectual Property (EPIP) Conference 2024 at Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna (Pisa), Italy.

On 5 September 2024, Maria O’Brien (as chair of the MeCCSA Policy Network) chaired a panel hosted by the MeCCSA Policy Network on issues relating to global policy research.

On 4 September 2024, Maria O’Brien presented a paper entitled “The Roadmap for Digital Creative Industries, Ireland’s new strategy” at the MeCCSA (Media, Communication & Cultural Studies) Conference 2024 at Manchester Metropolitan University.

On 30 May 2024, the cluster presented a panel at the Law School’s ‘Research Day’. Presentations included: Abigail Rekas and Xinpeng Liu: Generative AI and copyright Ronán Kennedy: Environmental and social impact of generative AI Maria O’Brien: The use of anti-trust policy to regulate big tech. Anıl Sena Bayındır: Patent Law Implications of Automation in Innovation The Technology and Rights panel at the Law School’s Research Day 2024:  

On 22 and 23 July 2024, Dr Rónán Kennedy and Dr Abigail Rekas co-organised and participated in the International Future of Law Association conference on Continuity or Crisis? The Future of Law after Technological Change, which was held in Vanderbilt Law School, Nashville. They were also invited participants at the SubTech (International Conference on Substantive Technology in Legal Education and Practice) conference at Northwestern School of Law, Chicago on 17 and 18 July.

On 9 July 2024, Dr Abigail Rekas was invited to brief the Arts Council Ireland on AI in the Arts - Copyright and IP. The workshop was delivered online and covered a whole range of discussions around generative AI in the Arts with the different arts teams and staff at the Arts Council. Her presentation covered her research into copyright and the creative industries, as well as access to justice and digital transformation.

On June 27–28, 2024, Anıl Sena Bayındır attended the Queen Mary Intellectual Property Research Institute, University of London Annual Conference 2024: AI Frontiers in Intellectual Property Law: Navigating the Future, where she presented her poster titled “To Patent AI-generated Inventions or Not Patent?” She was awarded second place in the poster competition.

In June 2024 the Irish Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA: Digital Games Research Association) was launched, spearheaded by Maria O’Brien. The Irish chapter of the global Digital Games Research Association (DIGRA Ireland) is a network of academic and non-academic scholars who are committed to developing research on games in Ireland, encourage the participation of doctoral and early-career researchers to bring their work to a global audience and to connect Irish game scholars with journalists, policymakers and opinion-makers enabling an active dialogue between academia and the public.

On 20 June 2024, Anıl Sena Bayındır presented her poster titled “To Patent AI-generated Inventions or Not Patent?” at UCL IBIL (University College London Institute of Brand and Innovation Law) PhD Conference on Current Research in IP Law.

On 13 June 2024, the Historical Studies Committee of the Royal Irish Academy held a one-day conference exploring questions of access to and preservation (including digital preservation) of Irish historical records and archives. Dr Maeve O’Rourke was a member of the conference organising committee and gave an invited lecture entitled ‘Institutional archives and human rights implications of lack of access to them’. Her presentation addressed current barriers to information access, and explored the international and European human rights law, and EU GDPR, norms that should underpin the management of historical abuse information and the future operations of the National Centre for Research and Remembrance at Sean McDermott Street in Dublin 1. The conference proceedings can be viewed here. A post-event report will be published later this year. Dr O’Rourke’s lecture was covered by Fintan O’Toole, ‘Failure to prevent destruction of records is a further insult to those whose identities were stolen’ The Irish Times (18 June 2024).

On 22 April 2024, Raisul Islam Sourav presented a paper on ‘Decoding Legal Analytics: Navigating the Prospects in the Digital Jurisprudence Era’ at LINAS (Leverhulme Interdisciplinary Network on Algorithmic Solutions) Conference 2024: The Automation Generation: The Societal Implications of AI, ML and Big Data at Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK. Anıl Sena Bayındır gave a presentation titled ‘Patent Law Implications of Automation in Innovation’ at this conference also.

On 16 April 2024, Dr Abigail Rekas gave a masterclass on ‘Copyright-AI-bility’ to the Centre for Creative Technologies at University of Galway. This talk reviewed copyright doctrine in the US & Europe, the various litigation on generative AI ongoing in the US and UK brought by publishers, artists, authors and newspapers, and then the question of who copyright serves, what its purpose is, and whether there is room at the table for new types of creativity? This session is part of a Masterclass Series run by the Centre for Creative Technologies at University of Galway. Further details on the series can be found at: https://www.universityofgalway.ie/creative-tech/ This talk provides a ten-cent tour of copyright doctrine in the US & Europe, particularly as it is impacted by the development of Gen AI. The rights of authors, creators, and artists will be explored, as well as those of intermediary businesses like publishers. It then moves to the various litigation ongoing in the US and UK brought by publishers, artists, authors and newspapers. The outcomes of these cases are highly relevant to the survival of Gen AI models as we know them. Lastly this talk turns to the question of who copyright serves, what its purpose is, and whether there is room at the table for new types of creativity – perhaps even creativity supported by Gen AI tools. Speaker Biography Dr. Abigail Rekas is a lecturer in law & innovation in the School of Law at University of Galway, and a US attorney. She is a copyright law and policy scholar with strong views about accessibility. She is also deeply interested in the preservation of and access to cultural heritage, including digital assets. Recent research centers around access to justice for persons working in the arts, including understanding and planning for the GenAI impact. She teaches intellectual property law and several microcredential courses around law and technology at University of Galway.

On 13 April 2024, Dr Maria O’Brien co-presented a paper with Dr Nick Webber titled “Funding for European video games: between industrial and cultural rationales” at the British DiGRA conference In-betweenness of Play in Staffordshire University London Digital Campus.

On 5 April 2024, Dr Maria O’Brien was an invited panellist at the Fís Games Summit on the panel ‘Imirt in 2024 and beyond’. Maria O’Brien updated the attendees on the activities of Imirt, the Irish games representative body, of which she is volunteer The FÍS Games Summit 2024 is the fourth annual event hosted by Ardán, supported by Screen Ireland, Gréasán na Meán, IMIRT, WRAP, Creative Europe Media Desk Ireland, ATU Galway, and Northern Ireland Screen. The goal of the summit is to help foster growth and success in the Irish games development community by providing developers on the island of Ireland with a unique opportunity to engage with talks and presentations that will help them in their own careers.

On 20 March 2024 Dr Abigail Rekas presented her research on a Non-Discrimination approach to content accessibility at the 39th Annual CSUN Assistive Technology Conference in Anaheim, California USA.  

On 1 February 2024 Dr Abigail Rekas was an invited panelist at the Fís TV Summit for the panel The Good, The Bad, the AI. The annual FÍS TV Summit brings creatives from all sectors of the TV industry together to listen, learn and connect with each other. Now in its 7th year, key stakeholders include Ardán, TG4, Screen Ireland, & Gréasán na Meán Skillnet, Coimisiún na Meán, Creative Europe Media Desk, ATU Galway City, National Talent Academy for Film & TV, WRAP, the Welsh Government and Creative Wales.

The International Future of Law Association recently held its in-person event, which was a conference held in Dublin, Ireland and funded by the School of Law at the University of Galway. The event was convened by Dr Rónán Kennedy of the Technology and Rights cluster, who has been leading on the development of IFLA since its early days. The conference was opened by our keynote speaker and IFLA committee member, Professor Cat Moon of Vanderbilt University and Director of Innovation Design and the Program on Law & Innovation there. She presented food for thought on the new skills and competencies which lawyers may need in a changing world of work, and opened up the conference themes of 'Replacement or Collaboration? Imagining the Future(s) of Law, Lawyers & Justice'. The rest of the day featured panel discussions on the future of law teaching, how lawyers can work with data, the changes that are taking place in legal practice, and how we integrate concerns regarding access to justice into legal education and lawyering. It was a hybrid event, featuring speakers from across Europe, Asia and North America, with opportunities for discussion and debate. The first panel was on futures of law teaching and featured Paul Ippolito of the College of Law Sydney, Prof Andy Unger of London South Bank University, both addressing different aspects of future-proofing and modernising the curriculum; Prof Brian W Tang from the University of Hong Kong on integrating generative AI into law teaching and Dr. Liam Sunner of Queen’s University Belfast on using video games in the classroom. That was followed by a panel on the use of data in legal research and teaching, including Dr Rohit Verma of the National College of Ireland on investigating semantic textual similarity in legal documents, Prof Quisquella Addison of Northeastern University on how to train law students to use data for social change, and Jennifer Waters of University College Dublin, who suggested there is a need for a sector specific data protection impact assessment for irish legal analytics services. In the afternoon, the discussion moved to the future of legal practice. Dr Brian Barry of Technological University Dublin and Prof John Morison and Dr Ciarán O’Kelly, both at Queen’s University Belfast discussed similar research that they are conducting on the use of AI and other advanced technologies by solicitors in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Audrey Fried of Osgoode Hall Law School provided suggestions on how generative AI could be integrated into legal skills, while Marc Lauritsen of Capstone Practice Systems and Suffolk University Law School suggested that legal expertise might become 'too cheap to meter'. The final session focused on access to justice and ethics. Tereza Novotná of Masaryk University presented a project she is leading to provide online access to primary legal texts in the Czech Republic. Larry Bridgesmith of Vanderbilt University discussed principles for the responsible use of AI in the delivery of legal services which he has helped to develop. Finally, Dr Rónán Kennedy of University of Galway asked if it was ethical to use generative AI in legal teaching in light of its significant environmental footprint and the human harms caused by its development. Video recordings from the day are available on IFLA’s YouTube channel.

On 24 October 2024, the Royal Irish Academy published the proceedings of the June 2024 event, Archives, Access and Human Rights, which includes Dr Maeve O’Rourke’s presentation on “Institutional Archives and Human Rights Implications of Lack of Access to Them”.

On 22 October 2024, Dr Rónán Kennedy, Dr Abigail Rekas, and Xinpeng Liu of the Technology and Rights Cluster, and Dr. Paul O’Neill of the Centre for Creative Technologies, made a detailed 9 page submission to the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment in response to a “Policy Questionnaire on the Relationship Between Generative Artificial Intelligence and Copyright and Related Rights” circulated by the Hungarian government as part of their presidency of the Council of the European Union.

On 9 October 2024, Maria O’Brien contributed to a Data workshop for the Digital Creative Industries Forum run by Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment

On 25 September 2024, Maria O’Brien hosted an Imirt pre-Nexus games industry event policy roundtable on future directions for the digital games industry, with attendees from Enterprise Ireland, Screen Ireland, Department of Culture, Industrial Development Agency, Ardán.