Programme

Keynote speech

In principle, competition leads to better product quality, lower prices, efficient utilisation of resources and innovation. Many markets in the creative sector (and in other sectors) have changed significantly as a result of digitalisation, however. The more users platform companies gain, the more attractive they become (‘the winner takes it all’). This favours the formation of monopolies and is likely to dilute the desired positive effects of competition. Tommaso Valletti will explain these developments from an economic perspective.

Keynote speech

AI has only just begun to make inroads into our lives, but it’s already clear that the creative industry and the content of creative work will change significantly. Many of the issues affecting the creative industry today relate to the economy and competition law. Laura Melusine Baudenbacher will give us her thoughts on the interaction between law and creative work, competition and AI.

Patrick Karpiczenko, better known as Karpi, will show us where AI’s limits currently lie. How does he work with AI? And what are his thoughts on it? Karpi will provide answers to these questions and give us an insight into his work.

Panel discussions

Copyright should enable creative people to exploit their work and make a living from it. But does that still work today? What challenges and opportunities do platform companies and AI offerings present? How do the affected parties and experts see the future? Do they find the legal framework sufficient? Or do they see a need for legislative action? These and other questions will be discussed by creatives, producers, publishers, platforms, experts and politicians in panels on linguistic works, image creation, music, design and film.

The results of the morning’s panel discussions will be summarised here. What similarities or differences and what challenges and opportunities can be identified? How should the results be viewed?

Presentation

Creative work, AI and platforms: What ethical aspects are important here? Dorothea Baur will discuss complex issues in depth and explore aspects relating to ethics, responsibility and sustainability.

Round table

How does the Swiss Federal Administration view developments in the arts and creative sector with regard to artificial intelligence and the platform economy? Where might the journey take us? What options are conceivable? And what is the current thinking on the subject? Carine Bachmann (Director of the Federal Office of Culture), Catherine Chammartin (Director General of the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property) and Bernard Maissen (Director General of the Federal Office of Communications) will discuss these questions.

The IPI is working intensively on the basis for legislative action in line with needs. To this end, it regularly collaborates with representatives from various academic disciplines and other specialists on studies of intellectual property law topics. Two studies commissioned by the IPI on generative AI and software protection will be presented briefly and clearly:

How generative AI is changing the Swiss creative industry – a study on the standpoint of creative professionals
There are various publications that deal theoretically with the effects of generative AI on the creative sector. But how do creative professionals working in Switzerland themselves view the use of the new technology? As an opportunity or a threat? What role should copyright law play in this? A survey conducted by PwC among various experts and over 500 creative professionals in Switzerland produced a mixed snapshot of the situation in the creative industry.

New approaches to protecting (AI-generated) software
The more digitalisation progresses, the more important software becomes economically. At the same time, AI is playing an increasingly crucial role in the creation of software. This makes it all the more important to consider whether there are better ways to protect software than the current two-pronged solution under copyright and patent law. The study highlights possible ways of revising this approach.

Would you like to know more after this brief presentation? The two comprehensive studies are published on the IPI’s website.

AI is used in many different ways in a wide range of creative industries. Some examples are visual effects in films, images of wild animals and voices in advertising. How can AI be deployed in practice and what are its limits? Watch and wonder at these contributions by Valentin Huber (Visual Effects Supervisor for the SRF series ‘Mindblow’), Bobby Gertsch (Founder and CEO nice noise), Filip Wolfensberger (Executive Creative Director CRK) and Michaela Nicolosi Hüsler (Literary Editor and Translator).

We take a look back at the conference. What have we learnt? What examples do we remember? And what will happen next? Whatever the answer, one thing is already clear: the situation will remain fascinating.