[Scholarly Resources] Collective Management of Copyright, TRIPS, and AI
Recently, three interconnected scholarly resources covering the following topics were launched by Professor Daniel J. Gervais, Milton R. Underwood Professor of Law (emeritus) at Vanderbilt Law School, and Senior Associate Professor (part-time) at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam:
- Collective management of copyright (Collective Management).
- The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement).
- Intellectual property (IP), artificial intelligence (AI), and the case for human creativity (The Human Cause).
The resources are interconnected as the “collective management provides the practical licensing infrastructure; TRIPS provides the international legal framework; and the human cause argument asks what those frameworks are ultimately for”.
1. Collective Management of Copyright
The website focuses on collective rights management, and it has two main sections, as outlined below.
Publications. This section comprises books, book chapters, journal articles, and commissioned reports by Professor Gervais on collective management of copyright (CMC) and related rights.
The publications can be accessed via hyperlinks to the sources, either redirecting to the publisher’s website to acquire the title (e.g., the 4th edition of the leading publication “Collective Management of Copyright and Related Rights”) or, where applicable, to the archived version of the relevant work.
Readings & Reference Materials. This section comprises institutional resources and a curated selection of academic scholarship on CMC and related rights. It includes hyperlinks to key organizations such as CISAC, IFRRO, and WIPO, as well as WIPO reference materials, including the latest edition of the “WIPO Good Practice Toolkit for Collective Management Organizations”, published in January 2025 (see here).
2. The TRIPS Agreement
The website focuses on the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), its drafting history, dispute settlement case law, and evolving interpretation. It has three main sections, as summarized below.
Work. This section includes hyperlinks to Professor Gervais’ books, book chapters, and journal articles on the TRIPS Agreement. You can also filter by topics such as trademarks, public health, traditional knowledge, exhaustion/parallel imports, copyright, and enforcement.
TRIPS Resources. This section comprises hyperlinks to the TRIPS Agreement and its translations into diverse languages; WTO official resources such as Dispute Settlement and Case Law Digest; the Uruguay Round negotiating history; and excerpts of WTO cases curated by Professor Gervais for teaching purposes.
News & Commentary. This section contains hyperlinks to posts on new WTO panel reports, legislative developments, academic debates, and current issues related to international IP law by Professor Gervais.
3. The Human Cause
The website focuses on “whether and how IP doctrine should require a genuine human cause behind the works and inventions it protects”, as well as the need of developing AI with human progress in mind, engaging both legal and philosophical aspects. The site has four main sections, as outlined below.
The Argument. This section explores the scholarly argument for why IP law “should insist on a human cause, and what is at stake if it does not”, including two foundational questions on copyright and patents, and a causation test.
Papers & Research. This section comprises hyperlinks to articles, book chapters, reports, and monographs on AI, IP, and the human cause by Professor Gervais.
Talks & Media. This section includes keynote addresses, presentation slides, audio discussions, and press coverage on topics such as licensing, AI-generated content, memorization, authorship, and fair use.
Blog Posts. This section contains hyperlinks to posts on trust-as-a-service infrastructure, prompt engineering, self-driving, generative AI, and IP, including a checklist of issues by Professor Gervais.
The Fiction Angle. This section covers the Coexistence Trilogy (see the dedicated website here). The trilogy is part of a project to understand interactions between humans and advanced AI, exploring the legal and philosophical aspects of such coexistence. The first volume of the trilogy is “Forever”, a legal sci-fi story, and the second volume, “Together” was launched recently.
Overall, these websites are valuable sources for a deep dive into these topics, offering a carefully selected range of relevant works on CMC and related rights, TRIPS, and IP & AI, curated by a leading scholar. As such, they are highly recommended for anyone interested in these issues.
