IFRRO Chief Says Unauthorized AI Use Is Not Sustainable

Anita Huss-Ekerhult, CEO of IFRRO, told The Scholarly Kitchen that situations in which large-scale unauthorized uses of protected content proceed without consent, remuneration or transparency are "neither legally allowed nor economically sustainable." She said they also "contribute to the erosion of trust." Roy Kaufman published the interview on 13 November 2026.

What authors in the survey described

Kaufman asked about a "witch hunt" against genuine human authors. Huss-Ekerhult said "this was a highly concerning trend raised by many authors in the survey."

"Because the market is flooded with AI content, readers and publishers are highly suspicious," she told The Scholarly Kitchen. "However, because AI detection tools are notoriously unreliable, genuine human writers are being wrongfully accused of using AI simply for using standard literary devices." She said it is "creating an environment of fear, where authors are forced to defend their integrity against unprovable accusations, adding reputational anxiety to their financial stress."

What 92% of respondents said

A combined 92% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that AI has already directly and negatively affected earnings, she told The Scholarly Kitchen. The examples they gave, she said, include use of protected content for AI training without consent and remuneration, AI-generated content that reduces the discoverability and profitability of human-created works, and declining and lost revenues, lost clients, missed professional opportunities and layoffs.

Kaufman put a second number to her: an overwhelming 96% of respondents feel the current legal framework is inadequate to protect them against AI developers. She said the survey identified three principal concerns. First, a lack of laws and policy initiatives that address the specific challenges raised by AI, including at the international level. Second, inadequate enforcement and sanctions. Third, interpretations of existing laws that may operate to the undue detriment of copyright protection and in favor of AI developers.

In Europe, she told The Scholarly Kitchen, members criticized the opt-out mechanism in Article 4(3) of the DSM Directive. In the US, she told The Scholarly Kitchen, AI developers are trying to aggressively stretch the boundaries of fair use.

She also said existing copyright law already contains important safeguards. The three-step test, fair dealing and fair use all require consideration, in different ways, of the effects of unauthorized uses on rightsholders and their markets. "So this is not simply a question of creating more law," she said.

A market substitute, and the cost of enforcement

She took the appellate decision in Thomson Reuters v. ROSS Intelligence as a recent US example. The court found, she told The Scholarly Kitchen, that "the fourth fair use factor weighed against the defendant because its product was meant to be a market substitute for the plaintiff's product and undercut potential future licensing." When assessing market harm, she said, "courts may consider not only actual market substitution, but also potential substitution and the impact of an unauthorized use on existing or developing licensing markets."

On enforcement, she said that while strong laws exist, "enforcement costs remain a massive barrier for authors and publishers against well-funded defendants," and that the challenge is equally about "the financial impossibility of litigation." Recent legislative proposals in France, which the interview links under the name French Darcos Bill, and proposals in Belgium "would introduce legal presumptions that would shift the burden of proof, making enforcement significantly more accessible and affordable for rightsholders," she told The Scholarly Kitchen.

Licenses, and three conditions

Kaufman said a majority of members believe AI-specific licenses will greatly improve their economic situation. He named collective management organizations that have launched initiatives: CCC, where he works, the CLA in the UK, VG Wort in Germany, Tekst&Node in Denmark, JAC in Japan, and Copyright Agency in Australia.

"We see collective licensing as especially useful in allowing authors and smaller publishers to receive an equitable share of the remuneration," Huss-Ekerhult told The Scholarly Kitchen. "Authors and rightsholders should be in a position to control and meaningfully consent to the use of their content, according to modalities that they are able to define and negotiate."

The study, she said, identifies three basic conditions. Rightsholders must have the legal right to control and consent to the use of their content on terms they can meaningfully negotiate. Policymakers, legislators and courts must uphold the principles and rationale governing copyright law and "avoid that undue harm is caused to authors, publishers and rightsholders." And: "We need legally mandated, enforceable transparency obligations covering both the content ingestion phase and the machine labeling of outputs."

She described IFRRO as "the global industry body for collective management organizations in the text and image sectors," with 160+ members from more than 90 countries, in the same interview. The conversation is about a paper IFRRO released on 28 October 2026, developed with Professor Eleonora Rosati: "The Legal, Policy, and Market Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Text- and Image-Based Works."

Kaufman, who did the interview, is managing director of both business development and government relations at the Copyright Clearance Center, the page says.