The SAA have joined a broad coalition of organisations in Europe’s creative and cultural sector that are calling for transparency, consent, and remuneration to be at the heart of AI implementation. The coalition emphasised that AI and creativity can thrive together – if the rules respect the people whose work powers these technologies.

Representatives from the film and audiovisual sectors across the world have released a statement and launched a global petition. In it, they urge all governments to stand firm and safeguard the systems that support independent film and audiovisual creation so that culture, creativity, and democratic access to diverse stories for the screen can continue to flourish.

In May 2025, the UN Humans Rights Office of the High Commissioner opened a call for contributions on AI and creativity, exploring the issues AI is bringing to human creativity and originality.

On 15 April, a delegation from the SAA met with Glenn Micallef, EU Commissioner for Intergenerational Justice, Youth, Culture and Sport. SAA Patron Špela Čadež, a Slovenian animation writer and director, shared her testimony of a career with precarious and unstable income, difficult to reconcile with work-life balance. Her experience reinforced the SAA’s message to the Commissioner.

On 1 April, SAA General Assembly elected a new leadership; a Board of Directors that will guide the strategic direction of the organisation for 2025-2027 to address the challenges facing audiovisual authors in Europe, including the impact of generative AI, the uncertain regulatory environment and the challenging political climate.

On 25 February, the SAA submitted its response to the UK’s public consultation on copyright and artificial intelligence. The UK proposes to introduce an exception for AI training with the possibility of rights reservations, similar to the EU. We responded that an exception for AI training is far from helpful in achieving the UK’s (and the EU’s) objective of promoting innovation while protecting the creative sector. Collective licensing is the most acceptable solution.

Joint statement by a coalition of authors, performers and other rightsholders active across the EU’s cultural and creative sectors regarding the third draft of the EU AI Act’s GPAI Code of Practice: It undermines the objectives of the AI Act, contravenes EU law and ignores the intention of the EU legislator – we cannot support it.

On 7 March, I was invited by the Hellenic Copyright Organisation to a conference they organised for their 30th anniversary in Athens. Many prominent copyright experts gave valuable presentations on copyright and AI, while I participated in a roundtable on Copyright and Collective Management in the Age of AI. The panel was moderated by Prof. Bernt Hugenholtz. Alongside my colleagues from GESAC (Adriana Moscoso del Prado), AEPO-ARTIS (Ioan Kaes) and IFRRO (Anthi Akritidou), I explained the challenges CMOs

In December 2024, the UK government opened a consultation on copyright and AI, in order to gather information from stakeholders “to deliver a copyright and AI framework that rewards human creativity, incentivises innovation and provides the legal certainty required for long-term growth in both sectors”.

Authors' and performers' representative organisations write to EU Vice-President Virkkunen and Commissioner Micallef to address the shortcomings of the AI Code of Practice to ensure that authors' and performers' rights and remuneration are respected.

What transpires from recent news about Meta’s use of a pirate website to train its AI model is certainly not good news for authors. Indeed, very disappointed but not surprised, the authors have entered 2025 with a further confirmation that protected works have been and will continue to be used without their authorisation. The news arrives at a crucial and turbulent time for the EU and its authors, for at least two reasons: the battle on interpretation of the text-and-data mining exception and the drafti