Legal Issues in the Digital Age

What is “Regulatory Path” for Russia?

2025-10-22T22:47:49+03:00

The article discusses how exactly artificial intelligence technologies are regulated in Russia with analysis of key regulatory trends observed internationally, including stepping up of international cooperation, prevalence of flexible, adaptive regulatory options over one-size-fits-all approach, as well as regulatory focus on generative artificial intelligence and ethical issues. A special emphasis is made on exploration of the Russian regulatory model for artificial intelligence. Rather than following in the wake of the European Union with its universal, comprehensive Artificial Intelligence Act, Russia has opted for a horizontal regulatory approach covering different economic and social sectors. The article present discusses a set of regulations governing the relationships associated with artificial intelligence including strategic documents, legal acts on regulatory sandboxes, regulation of medical AI applications, data access mechanisms, etc. It is argued that Russia follows the path of building a comprehensive regulatory system for AI based on a hybrid approach combining statutory, ethical and technical regulation for a balance between supporting innovation and protecting public interests.

Generative AI, Copyright and Personality Rights: A Comparative Legal Perspective

2025-10-22T22:47:35+03:00

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) has unsettled traditional boundaries between human authorship, machine creativity, and personal identity. Systems such as large language models (LLMs), text-to-image generators, and voice-cloning technologies are trained on vast repositories of copyrighted material, extracting patterns to produce novel outputs. These outputs increasingly emulate the stylistic signatures of authors or replicate the likeness and voices of individuals without authorization. The processes of training and generation have therefore become focal points of contestation among artists, legal scholars, and policymakers, as they implicate both the integrity of copyright protection and the evolving contours of personality rights. The present paper examines the ways in which courts and policymakers are addressing the complex intersection of generative AI, copyright law, and personality rights, with particular emphasis on the protection of voice and likeness in India and in other jurisdictions. It situates recent legal and regulatory developments—such as Midler v. Ford Motor Co. in the United States, Tennessee’s ELVIS Act, and the Bombay High Court’s ruling in Arijit Singh v. Codible Ventures LLP—within broader scholarly debates concerning fair use, derivative works, originality, and the misappropriation of identity. Through a comparative lens, the analysis underscores divergent regulatory approaches: the United States’ reliance on litigation and common law doctrines; the European Union’s statutory framework prioritizing transparency, data protection, and opt-out mechanisms; and India’s evolving jurisprudence, characterized by judicial innovation through dynamic injunctions and the recognition of personality rights. The study advances a unified “Consent–Compensation–Control” (3C) framework that integrates copyright and personality rights as a coherent response to AI-driven infringements. This framework emphasizes the need for explicit consent in the use of creative works and personal attributes, equitable mechanisms of compensation for such uses, and practical legal and technological tools to maintain individual control over identity and expression. By bridging the longstanding doctrinal divide between intellectual property and personality rights, the framework aims to safeguard both creative labour and personal dignity, while simultaneously enabling innovation within responsible and clearly delineated boundaries.

Criteria for the Legal Protection of Artificial Intelligence-Generated Intellectual Property

2025-10-22T22:47:22+03:00

The development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is challenging the traditional legal view of intellectual property. The subject of present research is the justification of the necessity of legal protection of the results of intellectual activity created by AI. The main risk of using AI in the creation of a work is the impossibility of legal protection of the work. AI can also violate intellectual property rights. In addition to violating rights mentioned, an object created by AI may not be real and be misleading, as well as violate law on personal data. Legal constructions should be modified to the new digital realities. The relevance of the research topic lies in the fact that AI puts a choice before legislators: to recognize AI sui generis legal personality or to replace the criterion of creativity with the criterion of investment. The aim of this research is to resolve this dichotomy. The methodological apparatus of this research includes comparative-legal and formal-logical methods. The novelty of the research is the analysis of the hypothesis: replacing the criterion of creativity with the criterion of investment as a criterion of legal protection. The conclusion of the exploration is that replacing the creativity criterion with the investment criterion seems to be the most preferable de lege lata solution. The current situation with the lack of a legal protection for objects created by AI may violate the equilibrium in the market of digital products and does not contribute to the resolution of the problem of legal uncertainty of the legal protection of the results of intellectual activity created by AI. Research in this direction it has a sense to be continued: a legal framework focusing on access, sharing, and use of data for the common good should be developed, while ensuring adequate privacy protections and workable means of protecting individuals from harm arising from data processing. Legal cornerstones need to be identified to improve access, use, and the sharing of data. The question of the law applicable to an AI system that uses raw data from different jurisdictions for training is also important.

Institutions of Personal Data in Russia and Personal Information in China: a Comparative Legal Analysis

2025-10-22T22:47:09+03:00

The authors analyze and compare Russian and Chinese approaches to legal regulation of personal data in Russia and of personal information in China institutions to identify their similarities and differences, as well as to determine the optimal practices of formation of these legal institutions. The concept and essential features of personal data and personal information in each of two countries are studied and compared, their similarities and differences are pointed out. International and national legal systems and the hierarchy of legal norms/spheres regulating in the field in Russia and China are analyzed; structural construction of regulatory and legislative bases in the spheres mentioned in Russia and China is studied and compared. The article examines state authorities regulating in the field in Russia and China, theirs system, structure and spheres of competence, as well as the capabilities of appropriate normative legal regulation. Proposals on the expediency of borrowing the more progressive and nationally oriented Chinese norms covering personal information into the Russian Federation legislation on personal data are substantiated.

Natural Person’s Posthumous Image Protection and the Scope of Heir Discretion

2025-10-22T22:46:57+03:00

While a person’s legal capacity ends up with death, his or her honor, dignity and privacy could continue to be protected. The emerging computer technologies expand the scope of human image manipulation by offering technical capabilities for a full-fledged reproduction of human face with its characteristic expression and movements. The difficulty is thus to delineate the virtual person and the real one for protecting both private and public interests. The article concludes that children, spouse and other heirs should not have the right to allow commercial use of the person’s image unless consented by him in his lifetime. It is argued the public interest to identify a natural person and separate him from a virtual double is to be protected. It is further demonstrated the likelihood of confusion grows with the progress of digital technologies, only to make a case for better protection of private interest that involves legitimate claims by family members to clear the decedent of any association with what he or she did not do. The interest of the third parties including consumers is likewise to be kept in mind, with a disclaimer to be given of someone’s image reproduced through the use of digital technologies in a movie or other complex product: since the offered digital product will not carry anything new, consumers have the right to know creative outcome from an average digital clone.

Challenges and Prospects for Legal Regulation of Working Time (Connection Time) for Digital Platform Workers

2025-10-22T22:46:43+03:00

Digital platforms, transforming the labour market through crowdsourcing and multitasking, create legal challenges in regulating of working time, exacerbated by the inefficacy of traditional labour legislation. The formal autonomy of self-employed platform workers masks algorithmic control, where the absence of fixed shifts (slots) coexists with dependence on platform prescriptions and algorithms. The legal ambiguity of working time on digital platforms, which conflates active work with periods of online availability, leaves workers unprotected against digital control that disguises exploitation as market flexibility. To address the problems of platform-based work distribution and the practical inefficacy of classical regulatory approaches, the theoretical concept of connection time is proposed in the article. Unlike zero-hour contract, that masks the absence of guarantees through flexibility, and traditional normative limits on working hours, inapplicable to platform employment, connection time offers an alternative by integrating active and passive modes of online availability into a unified legal framework. Within this concept, the mere act of connecting to a platform is recognized as creating a mandatory measure of labour that restricts worker autonomy. Active connection time, linked to task performance, is governed by duration limits and payment guarantees, while passive connection time (waiting for orders, maintaining ratings, readiness for tasks) is acknowledged as labour activity requiring compensation for readiness, that restricts personal autonomy. The concept of connection time addresses the issue of multi-platform work as a phenomenon increasing risks of workplace accidents and occupational diseases. The proposed legal innovations are insufficient without a technological approach: states must implement algorithmic regulation and monitoring systems to automate control over connection time. Institutionalizing connection time will transform abstract norms into enforceable rules, eliminating risk asymmetry between platforms and workers, while establishing the state’s regulatory authority in platform employment.