Protecting What Is Yours: AI, Rights, and Ownership in 2026

What an artist owns has become a wider question than copyright alone. Voice, likeness, name, performance data and creative credit can all now be used, licensed or replicated and the rules covering them are being written across several jurisdictions at once. Some of it is already settled. Work generated without meaningful human creative input does not attract protection. Licensing frameworks are emerging from settlements between rightsholders and AI companies. Platforms are introducing disclosure requirements when AI contributes materially to a track and voice protection legislation is moving in several markets.
This panel brings together legal, publishing and distribution perspectives to cover what artists can protect, what they are now obliged to declare and where those decisions actually land: at the point of signing, at the point of release and at the point someone else uses the work.