Regulation galore: Legal trends to watch in 2025

Early this year, we made some predictions on legal trends for 2024. Now it is time to look back and see where we have been right (+) and where we have been wrong (-), as well as making some new predictions for 2025. We’ve dropped some topics this year, such as Metaverse and NFTs. We did not predict any major developments, there were no major developments, and we don’t see these topics booming next year. But there’s still a Top Ten to cover, so let’s go… Image credit: Adobe 1. Artificial intelligence and copyright What we predicted (+) “While the discussion has mainly focused on AI-created audio-visual content so far, it may shift to AI-created game code and databases. At the same time, game companies will continue to explore other use cases for AI. “Furthermore, it looks likely, considering the litigation landslide which has already begun in the US and the UK, that continental Europe will see the first Generative AI copyright infringement cases hitting the courts… Rightsholders who don’t want their works to be scraped for AI training should in any event mark their websites accordingly.” What happened AI is seemingly everywhere. On the legal side, all that we predicted has happened, but maybe a tad slower than what we had thought. In the US, there are plenty of legal disputes going on, but Europe is still lagging behind in terms of AI-related disputes. Two might be worth noting: The Hamburg Regional Court was the first German court to rule on the question of whether the training of AI infringes copyright. It dismissed a photographer’s claim, as it held that the use of his photo was covered by the so-called text and data mining exception.A couple of months earlier, the Prague Municipal Court ruled that an image created by an AI system cannot be protected by copyright. This is in line with the current legal approach in the EU, where only a human creator can claim copyright in their work. The AI Act imposes some quite big obligations. For games companies, the need to disclose when users are interacting with AI and to mark AI creations will arguably be the most important On the other hand, Europe wants to be in the lead for regulation. The EU is very proud to have passed the EU AI Act as the world’s first holistic law on AI, although most of the provisions will only be applicable in 2026. The AI Act imposes some quite big obligations. For games companies, the need to disclose when users are interacting with AI and to mark AI creations will arguably be the most important. Regulation does not prevent business from using AI. Everyone is really busy exploring the possibilities it brings. So it did not come as a surprise that X is heading in that direction as well. Still, it was maybe not noticed by everybody that as part of the November 15 TOS update, X asks its users for a license to train AI
Game Industry source