Copyright, the AI Act and Extraterritoriality

This paper examines the complex relationship between generative artificial intelligence (AI) and European copyright law, with a particular focus on the recently adopted EU AI Act and its potential extraterritorial effect. The paper begins by mapping key copyright challenges across the AI lifecycle, from the use of copyrighted training data to the status of AI-generated outputs. The paper then provides a detailed examination of the AI Act’s copyright-related provisions, including obligations for general-purpose AI (GPAI) providers, the interaction with the text-and-data mining (TDM) exceptions in the CDSM Directive, and the legal uncertainties surrounding copyright opt-outs. A core focus of the paper is examining the potential extraterritorial reach of the AI Act, exploring whether and how EU copyright compliance obligations may extend to AI model training conducted outside the EU. The paper concludes by highlighting unresolved tensions between copyright’s territoriality principle and conflict of laws rules, on the one hand, and the global nature of AI development, on the other, stressing the need for legal clarity and a balanced approach that ensures both innovation and fair remuneration for creators.