Minister of Culture Jakob Engel-Schmidt (M) is proposing an amendment to the Copyright Act to ensure that no one has their personal characteristics used in manipulated videos, images or sound recordings without consent.

"We want to give ordinary people, public figures, artists, politicians and everyone else the right to their own body, voice and facial features at a time when technology has overtaken our laws and threatens our democracy," says Jakob Engel-Schmidt to DR.

A necessary protection

The bill, which the government will submit for debate in 2025, will be the first of its kind in the EU. One of the reasons is the lack of legislation that currently makes it difficult for citizens to remove deepfake material, which can damage both reputation and public debate.

In Dansk Artist Forbund we support the initiative from the Minister of Culture, precisely because art and artists need protection in a time of rapid technological development - also in the field of art:

"It's positive that culture is getting attention in this context. Politicians are in the midst of one of the most important value battles of recent times, where it is important to pursue an ambitious cultural policy - both in Danish legislation and through our upcoming EU presidency," says Sara Indrio, chairperson of the Danish Artist Association.

She also warns against making it a problem for celebrities and artists alone:

"If we are flooded with machine-generated imitations without a human behind them, the artists' problem quickly becomes a democratic problem. The protection of artists' rights is not only crucial for their survival, but also for citizens' access to quality, transparency, genuine artistic content and future investments in artistic productions," says Sara Indrio.

It's not just about protecting artworks, voices and faces

According to Sara Indrio, it's not just about protection, but also about ensuring basic transparency.

We need a labelling scheme so that the audience knows when content is AI-generated."We look forward to following the legislative work on the bill and the upcoming recommendations from the government's AI expert group. At the same time, we believe it is crucial that we get a labelling scheme so that the audience can clearly see when there is a human behind a work - and when it is created by artificial intelligence," says Sara Indrio.

According to the Minister of Culture, the amendment will protect both democracy and public dialogue without slowing down innovation. Legislative work is expected to begin during 2025.