Registration is now open for the annual ALAI Congress to be held in The Hague, Netherlands from 17 to 19 June. The theme of the Congress is 'Copyright and Free Expression in the Age of Algorithms'. Here is a link to the Congress website: registration The Congress will be preceded on 17 June by a NextGen event for young professionals, details ofwhich can be found on the Congress website. Please note the deadline of 15th February for registering to attend this event.

JANUARY 2026

BLACA is pleased to announce the results of the Bursary awards for 2025/26.

There are two recipients: Kathryn Dark and Sandra McLean

Kathryn Dark is studying for the LLM at King’s College London.

Sandra McLean is studying for the LLM at University College London.

The two recipients attended the awards ceremony at Stationers’ Hall on 17 November 2025. We offer both receipients our very warm congratulations.

BLACA's Vice Chair Professor Alison Firth attended the ALAI annual conference that took place in Opatija, Croatia in October on the theme 'Whose Right Is Copyright?' and represented BLACA at the meeting of the ALAI Executive Committee there. In addition, BLACA executive committee member Professor Paul Torremans also attended the ALAI committee meeting and gave a paper on private international law in the panel 'Ownership of copyright and performers' rights'.

October 2024

At the meeting of the ALAI Executive Committee that preceded the ALAI Congress in Santiago, Chile in October 2024 our Chairman, Stephen Edwards, gave a brief presentation about BLACA, covering the information set out in the powerpoint slides to be found here. Dr James Parish's presentation highlighted that several competingdefinitions for “limitations” and “exceptions” circulate in international commentary, any of which may subtly change the interpretation of Article 13 of TRIPS.

February 2024

On 17 February 2024, ALAI adopted a resolution on the impact of AI on Copyright law.

The Executive Committee of the Association Littéraire et Artistique Internationale (ALAI), atits meeting in Paris on 17 February 2024, adopted the following resolution, which follows on from the results of the ALAI Paris Congress, held from 22 to 23 June 2023:

Considers that artificial intelligence (AI) raises existential social and economic challenges that affect, in particular, the individual creator, whether author or artist.

Considers that the principle of respect for the exclusive rights of authors and performers applies in the context of AI, and that it follows that the rightholder’s authorisation must be obtained and at least fair and equitable remuneration guaranteed from the moment their creations or performances are used, whether or not for profit-making purposes, to feed all or part of the system's "training data". Any legislative, case law or contractual solution put in place to authorise this input must comply with this fundamental standard. In particular, any limitation or exception to the rightholder’s exclusive rights must at least comply with the threestep test.

Affirms that the humanist principle that inspires the provisions of the Berne Convention requires us to consider that, in the absence of creative and determinative intervention by a human being, no production resulting from an automatic data processing system can claim to be vested with rights based on this Convention. While a system whose output is controlled by a natural person may provide a tool for human creation, outputs resulting from purely mechanical processing are not "intellectual creations" within the meaning of article 2 of this Convention.

Affirms that the use of an AI system must be accompanied by a duty of transparency, upstream and downstream, of the production process. Upstream, for the information of rightholders, when pre-existing protected works or performances are entered into the AI system for training
purposes. Downstream, after production, so that potential buyers or users of the generated object are informed of its production process.

Pauliina Ketonen (2021 BLACA/Stationers Company bursary recipient) was awarded QMUL LLM in Intellectual Property prize for top marks in the specialisation cohort .

JANUARY 2020

BLACA is pleased to announce the results of the Bursary awards for 2019 ,the fourth year that these awards have been made.

There are two recipients: Olivia Jean-Baptiste and Jake Campbell.

Olivia Jean-Baptiste is studying for the LLM at Queen Mary University of London

Jake Campbell is studying for the LLM at King’s College London

There will be an awards ceremony at Stationers’ Hall on Monday 13 th January 2020. We offer both receipients our very warm congratulations.