In the statement, Josef Drexl’s team concludes that current law falls short in two crucial areas and proposes specific new regulations. It also addresses the issue of “prompting” – that is, when users give specific instructions to an AI system.
Training Permitted in Exchange for Compensation
The first new regulation concerns the development of AI models. Anyone using freely accessible internet content for this purpose should be legally permitted to do so in the future, provided they pay fair compensation. For content that is not publicly available online, the Institute recommends voluntary licensing agreements in which rights holders themselves choose whether to license their content individually or through a collecting society.
AI Providers Earn Money, So Do Creators
The second new regulation addresses exploitation: Anyone who distributes AI-generated texts, images, or music and generates revenue from them should share that revenue fairly. This can be done, for example, through a collective system in which collecting societies manage the rights on a consolidated basis. Regardless of which model is adopted, creators should in any case have a legal right to fair compensation.
Position Statement
Josef Drexl, Kateryna Militsyna, Gil Dagan
Position Statement of the Max Planck Institute of 25 June 2026 on the current European debate on the future copyright framework in times of generative AI
Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition Research Paper No. 26-10