BAPLA held their Focus 2025 event yesterday -Thursday 25 September- at the Churchill War Rooms in London. The theme for the event was all about ‘power, the power of images, the power to influence and the power to protect what matters’.
Our PAN reporter for this event was Paul Brown (recently ‘retired’ MD at Mary Evans Picture Library and currently in London for a couple of months) who sent us this report and photos:
BAPLA FOCUS 2025
This year’s BAPLA Focus, held at the Churchill War Rooms in Westminster, focussed on the power of images: how they influence and how they can protect what matters in an age of deep-fakes and synthetic media. The event also celebrated BAPLA’s 50th anniversary of protecting and supporting rights-holders and copyright, through networking and the obligatory evening party in a venue where history was made.
Inevitably, such an event couldn’t take place these days without mentioning AI and Focus didn’t disappoint. However, the discussions seemed a lot more practical and informative than some other events. Isabelle Doran CEO of the AOP gave the keynote speech “Copyright, Control and the Creator’s Voice”. The bad news was that the UK Government seems more interested in revenues from the big tech companies who basically fund the Government advisors on AI, than protecting the lower revenues they receive from the creative industries. Also, the current legal framework is not fit for purpose to challenge AI copyright infringement. The better news is that the creative industries are very focussed on proving the value of originality and creativity and are already engaging well with relevant people in Government, though the constant change of ministers does make it a very long drawn-out process.
The AI theme continued with the panel “Copyright in Crisis: Collective Action in the Age of AI” where representatives from the CMOs DACS and Picsel provided some very interesting legal background and updates, and advised those gathered that they were looking at potential collective management solutions for remuneration from the AI sector, since it increasingly looks like the horse has bolted in setting up any primary licensing arrangements.
The “Truth and the Image” panel highlighted the dangers to rights-holders for the illegal scraping of their images with useful data and examples of abuse. No real solutions, but a lot of discussion, and attendees appeared to go away much better informed and with much food for thought. But good advice from the panel was to protect authenticity and provenance, and try to get the tech companies to clearly mark what images are AI generated.
A welcome respite from the AI discussion was offered by the panel “Quiet Pioneers: Women Shaping the Visual Record”. Inspiring and fascinating tales of women and the challenges they have faced in the industry over the years from Mary Evans to Lee Miller were told by speakers, Harriet Bridgeman CBE (Bridgeman Images), Lucinda Gosling (Mary Evans Picture Library), Ami Bouhassane (Farleys House & Gallery and Lee Miller Archives), Christina Vaughan (CulturAI), Melanie Llewelyn (Getty Images/Hulton Archive), Annabel O’Connor-Fenton (Imperial War Museums IWM). It was fascinating to learn some of the history of well known libraries and collections, and the value of originality and authenticity and preservation of the historical record was clearly presented as the stories unfolded.
One suggestion that is worth highlighting was offered by Bil Bungay on the “License to Last: The Past, Present and Future of Image Rights” panel. He said “Let the machine police the machine”. An AI should be able to break down a generated image into its component parts and identify where each image used to generate it came from, to enable rights-holders to see which images, if any, have been infringed. It’s unlikely the tech companies will ever release such data, but it could provide a solution to licensing or remuneration if they can be persuaded to do so.
Focus 2025 was definitely one of the best events offered by BAPLA in recent years and a respectable celebration of their 50th year. Here’s to the next 50 years and to Focus 2026!
-Ends –
Thanks Paul …you can go back to being retired again for a while now …more coffee soonest!