Herchel Smith Lecture 2025: Martin Senftleben
Reconciling AI Innovation with Copyright Values – are Copyright Exceptions for AI Training the Right Answer?
The Annual Herchel Smith Lecture took place on Tuesday 11th November attended by over 80 CCLS alumni, students and legal professionals. It was delivered by Martin Senftleben, a Professor of Intellectual Property Law and Director, Institute for Information Law (IViR), University of Amsterdam. He also works as an Of Counsel at Bird & Bird, The Hague. His activities focus on the reconciliation of private intellectual property rights with competing public interests of a social, cultural or economic nature. Current research topics include generative AI systems and author remuneration; open science and digital autonomy of researchers; platform and digital ecosystem regulation; copyright data improvement and content recommender systems; behavioural advertising and consumer empowerment; the development of sustainable intellectual property policy.
CCLS alumnus and our IP Alumni Chapter Committee Member, Stefano Incarbone (Intellectual Property LLM, 2022) commented about the event on his recent LinkedIn post:
“Thanks to Professor Johanna Gibson for the invitation to join the prestigious Herchel Smith Lecture 2025 (and the delicious dinner afterwards) at the majestic Honourable Society of Lincoln’s Inn. Also, very glad to have met again the old friend Martin Senftleben and hearing his brilliant lecture on how to Reconcile AI Innovation with Copyright Law. I particularly liked the idea of focusing on the AI outputs (rather than on the training phase) to try and strike a fair balance between the two (apparently) contrasting industries: the music industry and the AI developers. Among the other merits, this has certainly opened my mind and made me think in a different direction, considering an angle I wasn’t exploring before. I’ll certainly give it some more thoughts over the next days.
In a period where AI has drastically revolutionised our daily lives, academic debate is such an important part to orient legislators and, more generally, the society at large in the right direction. All of this is so terribly fascinating and I feel lucky to be born in this era!”
Pritam Dumbré (Comparative and International Dispute Resolution LLM, 2025) added: “This year’s luminary - Professor Martin Senftleben delivered a thorough exploration of whether current copyright tools like individual licensing or traditional exceptions are actually suited to AI training. Professor Senftleben suggested looking instead at an output-based model, where AI systems contribute to a shared remuneration pool, which could still fit within the three-step test under international law. This approach seeks to balance innovation with fair compensation for creators, without rushing into rigid new legislation. The nuances of this lecture and Professor Senftleben’s observations were truly remarkable for how he traced the evolving interaction between IP and generative AI, and, more importantly, suggested a credible direction for future policy and practice. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered such an advanced and searching discussion of intellectual property - particularly on an issue of such immediate relevance.”
Professor Johanna Gibson, who chairs the lecture, extended her thanks: "This year’s Annual Herchel Smith lecture was a brilliant event, a superb lecture from Martin Senftleben, and a wonderful party to celebrate Dr Smith’s life-changing generosity for CCLS and QMUL School of Law. Thank you to Martin and to you all for coming and helping us thank Herchel Smith!”
To find out more about the event see our past events web page Items - Centre for Commercial Law Studies
Find out more about the Herchel Smith Fund and Professor Johanna Gibson – the first woman to hold the Chair since it was established over thirty years ago. Herchel Smith Chair of Intellectual Property Law - Centre for Commercial Law Studies