In Denmark, there are plans to change copyright law: Everyone should own their own likeness. The change aims primarily to prevent identity theft. How the Danish state intends to control this in the future is another question.
What does Denmark want to change? Denmark wants to adjust copyright law. In the future, every person should be the owner of their own image. This includes the body, face, and even the voice. This change is intended to protect individuals from having their identities stolen by AI.
The Danish Minister of Culture, Jakob Engel-Schmidt, said to the English-language Guardian:
In the draft legislation, we agree and send an unambiguous message that every individual has the right to their own body, their own voice, and their own facial features, which the current law obviously does not do to protect people from generative AI. People can be run through the digital copying machine and misused for all sorts of purposes, and I am not willing to accept that.
It is relevant that the law is not intended to target parody or satire. Instead, the Danish government intends primarily to focus on issues such as defamation and misinformation. So, a pope in a down jacket could still exist in the future.
The Danish government has approved the proposal, and nine out of ten members support the change. Thanks to this support, the Ministry of Culture is preparing a proposal to amend the law, which is expected to come into force in the fall of 2025.
Deepfakes are considered a major danger and a tool of fraudsters
What is the problem with deepfakes? Deepfakes are primarily manipulated video or audio files altered using artificial intelligence to appear deceptively real. Some of these have become so good that it’s hard to distinguish fakes from real videos.
On one hand, some of these fakes are meant to be funny or absurd. For example, a video was circulated featuring former Pope Francis in a down jacket, causing amusement and irritation.
On the other hand, fraudsters are deliberately exploiting the situation to stage kidnappings or spread propaganda with false faces. Some sites spread sexual and offensive content that is fake, causing shaking of heads and horror among those affected. With the amendment to the law, the goal is to prevent such fakes. Denmark also wants to specifically punish violations of the law. How this will work exactly is not yet known.
Using artificial intelligence, fake videos can be generated that look real. Intel is now developing an AI that is supposed to recognize such videos. You can read about how this works in the following article on MeinMMO: Intel develops AI to prevent you from falling for fake videos
