Sky News: “The King and AI: A humanoid robot has painted a picture of Charles. How did it do?”

The Verge: “AI residencies are trying to change the conversation around artificial art”

Associated Press: “Judge dismisses authors’ copyright lawsuit against Meta over AI training”

AI Schisms: Fair Use vs. Fair Pay

As fireworks lit up the sky this Fourth of July in America, it’s worth remembering the Founders’ original take on copyright: it wasn’t about glorifying creators—it was about empowering the public. The Constitution gave authors limited rights only to “promote the Progress” of knowledge and art.

Europe? A different story. Rooted in Romanticism, it treated creative work as sacred—an extension of the author’s soul—with “moral rights” that persist long after expression.

That philosophical divide is surfacing in the global AI debate. Recently, in the U.S., a California court partially ruled in favor of Anthropic’s use of copyrighted materials to train its AI, invoking fair use – an American doctrine rooted in public access and innovation. Meanwhile, in the U.K., the House of Lords called for stricter copyright controls on AI training data, reflecting Europe’s creator-centric approach.

So who’s right? Is authorship a personal legacy – or a building block. The answer may determine whether the future of art is open to all—or fenced off for a few.

When the Tramp Remained Silent

This July, a new report from Fabrik revealed what most filmmakers already feel: AI is everywhere – storyboarding, editing, even voiceovers. Yet, many directors are saying “no thanks.” A growing wave is going full analog, editing by hand and shooting on film, in the name of protecting the “soul of storytelling.”

They aren’t the first to say no to the machines. In 1928, following the release of The Jazz Singer, the first “talkie” film, Charlie Chaplain refused to have the Tramp speak. As most of Hollywood rushed into a new sound era, Chaplain continued making silent films for nearly a decade. He argued that audible words would limit the emotional expressiveness of the characters. It would dilute the heart and soul of film.

Perhaps something was lost with sound. But perhaps, like sound, AI can also make story telling deeper and more inclusive. Every tool we adopt reshapes the art we make – the calculus is what are we trading when we do it?

From Machine Guns to Tattoo Guns

If the movies taught us anything, it’s fear the robots with guns – from Terminator’s T-800 to Bladerunner’s Replicants, and on and on. But what if the robot isn’t holding a weapon… it’s got a tattoo needle?

Meet Tatoué, a French-designed industrial robot that’s been reprogrammed to ink human skin with surgical precision. It scans your arm in 3D, follows a mapped design, and tattoos it—perfectly, mechanically, and without questions or judgement about that Shrek tramp stamp you requested.

It began as an art school experiment. Now it asks something deeper: what happens when one of the most human acts of artistic expression—marking your own body—gets handed off to a machine?

Some say it’s sterile and soulless. Others call it safer and more accessible. Either way, the robots are here—not with bullets, but with ink. And they’re drawing on us.

BEN AFFLECK ON AI AND MOVIE MAKING

A video of Ben Affleck opining on the future of AI in film making blew up on X, in it Affleck says that AI isn’t going to replace film-makers, saying:

“movies will be one of the last things, if everything gets replaced, to be replaced by AI.”

What he did say was that AI film making would lower the barrier to entry for film-making:

“What AI is going to do is dis-intermediate the more laborious, less creative, and more costly aspects of filmmaking that will allow costs to be brought down, that will lower the barrier to entry, that will allow more voices to be heard.”

This reminded us of a great clip of Affleck in 2003 when asked for his take on how the internet and file sharing would impact the movie industry - he’d go on to predict annual subscription based on demand entertainment like Spotify and Netflix, saying:

"I think an annual subscription-based system is one that works, It will be movies on demand but it will be a tiered structure"

COCA-COLA AI HOLIDAY ADVERT

Coca Cola released its Christmas advert, this year generated using AI. This unsurprisingly irked those opposed to AI image generation… leading to headlines about ‘controversy’ triggered by the ad.

A note on the ad says ‘created with ‘Real Magic AI’ - Coca-Cola’s own AI system - leading us to think, some kind of Christmas themed branded content creation app may be in the works. The AI generated Ad might well be a ploy to court controversy - as free marketing. All publicity is good publicity as they say…

Could this be the start of a new trend in AI ‘outrage marketing’ - where brands deliberately antagonize the anti-AI crowd?

HarperCollins AI Deal

Giant publisher Harper-Collins has started to ask its authors to opt-in to AI training systems from companies it is working with - offering a flat fee to authors of $2,500 - it seems this wasn’t enough to avoid backlash…

Earlier this year HarperCollins announced a deal with ElevenLabs to create audiobooks for foreign translations it wouldn’t otherwise have made.

This is an important reminder that AI will likely do more things that wouldn’t have otherwise been done, than it will replace things already done by humans - stuff like creating foreign language audiobooks, will increase the reach and sales of authors work. This will of course require authors give permission that their work be fed into AI systems.