0 cumulative citations
View corpus contextCopyright and publicity law—born of Romantic notions of individual authorship—misfires on synthetic avatars; treating virtual influencers as platform interfaces governed by stewardship and contribution would better align legal rights with how digital cultural goods are produced and reduce incumbent platform control.
"What's in a Name?": Authorship Without a Subject, Ownership Without a Self in the Age of Algorithmic Fame
openalex
theoretical
n/a evidence
7/10 relevance
Summary only
summary available; pdf_status=pending
Source
Current copyright and publicity-rights regimes, premised on individual authorship, poorly fit algorithmically produced virtual influencers and should be reoriented toward an interface-centered regime allocating rights by stewardship, contribution, and control.
Citation observations
Cumulative provider counts captured on specific dates; providers are never combined.
In the context of authorship, the question “What’s in a name?” has never been more urgent. As generative artificial intelligence (AI) blurs the boundaries between human and synthetic creativity, the function of an author’s name is increasingly symbolic, performative, and legally unstable in the digital age. It follows that the question “What’s in a name?” may become the key to redefining authorship itself. Lil Miquela, also known as Miquela Sousa, is a computer-generated influencer with millions of followers that embodies the shift from human authorship to algorithmic persona and might serve as a suitable test case. As leading scholars caution that “Miquela will not be the last of her kind; let us be prepared,” the pressing question arises: Can our current Intellectual Property (IP) framework, particularly copyright law and the right of publicity, adequately respond to the emergence of the virtual celebrity? Namely, are we entering a post-subject era of celebrity where the “face” is less important than the interface? Time’s inclusion of Miquela among the twenty-five most influential people on the internet in June 2018 underscores that the virtual influencer is more than a technological or artistic novelty. We are facing a new legal subjectivity that destabilizes longstanding boundaries between subject and object, author and avatar. As digital media increasingly blurs the lines between news, entertainment, and commerce, the unchecked expansion of publicity rights threatens to destabilize the fragile equilibrium between creative freedom, public interest, and proprietary control. Regarding this framework, viral social media avatars problematize traditional legal frameworks of authorship, originality, and persona even more than their living counterparts. Meanwhile, copyright and publicity rights remain rooted in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century models of Romantic authorship, heavily influenced by three Enlightenment-era philosophers, Immanuel Kant, G. W. F. Hegel, and J. G. Fichte. The conceptions of identity, authorship, originality, and property that underpin both copyright law and the framework of publicity rights are increasingly unsustainable in the context of contemporary digital modes of creativity and self-representation. Part I draws on Schopenhauer’s aesthetic metaphysics in The World as Will and Representation to critique the prevailing legal models of authorship and identity. By positing that the self is merely a representation, a phenomenal illusion serving the Will, Schopenhauer anticipates a legal reality in which authorship and personhood no longer cohere. Schopenhauer’s conception of the genius as one who suppresses the Will to intuit universal ideas, morphing into “pure subject of knowing,” undermines copyright’s emphasis on both expression as personal authorship and the idea/expression dichotomy. Hence, Schopenhauer provides the philosophical groundwork for a post-authorial legal theory. Schopenhauerian applications are particularly apt in an era in which content is increasingly generated by machines, avatars, and networks rather than by autonomous human agents. In offering originality without self and serving as a conceptual bridge to postmodern critiques of celebrity culture and the disproportionate legal authority granted to authorship, it proposes a shift from ownership to stewardship, from identity to relation, and from originality to perception, aligning law with the ontological conditions of cultural production in the digital age. Moving from author to interface, Part II focuses on Foucault’s framework, aligning with Schopenhauer’s metaphysics, which similarly dismantles the notion of the autonomous individual. In his seminal lecture, What Is an Author?, Michel Foucault deconstructs the traditional view of the author as a sovereign originator, proposing instead that authorship functions as a classificatory and institutional device. The “author-function,” according to Foucault, is part of his understanding of power as being primarily based on law, prohibition, and repression, thereby creating a juridico-discursive construct that arises from the needs of legal and institutional regulation. Virtual celebrities are produced through processes of surveillance, optimization, and audience analytics, precisely the mechanisms of Foucauldian power/knowledge. The synthetic body, ever-pliable and governed by performance metrics, becomes the ideal of disciplinary authority: a subject that does not resist but performs endlessly. Corporations, as creators and curators of virtual celebrities, govern identity itself, acting as epistemological sovereigns who determine what is seen, who is heard, and how subjectivity is constructed. In Foucauldian terms, this is not authorship; it is governance. Part III deconstructs the virtual author-function, suggesting a post-authorial legal paradigm and blueprint policy in terms of contribution and control, drawing lessons from Schopenhauer and Foucault. If ownership of a VI is an ontological governance over an interface rather than a persona, the question becomes what sort of legal subjectivity we are prepared to recognize. Consequently, the gist of the matter is not the identity of the VI, but ours.
Summary
Main Finding
Current intellectual property and publicity-rights regimes—grounded in Romantic-era notions of individual authorship and personhood—are ill-suited to govern virtual influencers and other algorithmically produced cultural goods. The paper argues for a shift from author-centered ownership to an interface-centered legal paradigm that treats corporate-controlled virtual identities as governed platforms (stewardship, contribution, and control) rather than natural-person authors. This reorientation better aligns law with the ontological conditions of digital cultural production and the political economy of platform-mediated creativity.
Key Points
- Technological context: Generative AI and synthetic avatars (e.g., Lil Miquela) blur human/synthetic authorship, making names and “faces” symbolic and performative rather than straightforward markers of individual creative origin.
- Legal mismatch: Copyright and publicity rights derive from Romantic and Enlightenment conceptions of individual genius and personality (influenced by Kant, Hegel, Fichte), which break down when agency is distributed across algorithms, corporations, and networks.
- Schopenhauerian critique: Treating the self as a representation undermines the idea that originality requires a stable, autonomous author; algorithmic outputs can be “original” without a human subject, pushing toward post-authorial conceptions (ownership → stewardship; identity → relation).
- Foucauldian analysis: The “author-function” is an institutional classificatory device; virtual celebrities are produced and governed through surveillance, optimization, and metrics—forms of power/knowledge—so corporations function as epistemic sovereigns rather than traditional authors.
- Risk: Expanding publicity rights and treating avatars as proprietary personhood may curtail creative freedom, concentrate power in platform owners, and destabilize the balance between public interest and proprietary control.
- Normative proposal: Recast legal subjectivity around contribution and control over interfaces—allocate rights and obligations based on governance roles (who designs, trains, curates, and monetizes the interface), transparency, and stewardship duties rather than nominal personhood of virtual entities.
Data & Methods
- Methodology: Philosophical-legal analysis combining:
- Critical readings of canonical theorists (Schopenhauer, Foucault) to reconceptualize authorship and subjectivity.
- Doctrinal critique of copyright and publicity-rights frameworks.
- Conceptual case study: Lil Miquela as an illustrative instance of virtual celebrity, public influence, and monetization within platform economies.
- Policy design: normative argumentation proposing a contribution/control framework for legal reform.
- Empirical content: Limited — relies on qualitative examples (media coverage, platform practices, industry behavior) rather than quantitative econometric or experimental evidence.
- Evidence gaps: No formal economic modeling or measured impact estimates of proposed legal changes; empirical validation and calibration are left for future work.
Implications for AI Economics
- Incentives & innovation
- Unclear ownership of AI-generated value raises investment uncertainty and transaction costs; firms may hoard interfaces to capture rents, potentially reducing entry and innovation.
- A stewardship/contribution regime could reallocate incentives—rewarding platform maintenance, curation, and training—rather than exclusive personality-based rents.
- Market structure & competition
- Current legal ambiguity favors large incumbents (who control data, models, and interfaces). Without reform, virtual influencers can accelerate concentration of advertising and attention markets.
- Policies that recognize interface stewardship and mandate interoperability/transparency could lower barriers and promote competition in creator and influencer markets.
- Labor & distributional effects
- Human creators, influencers, and intermediaries may be displaced or see bargaining power erode if persona-proprietary claims are extended to synthetic avatars; alternative remuneration (revenue shares, platform royalties) should be considered.
- Monetization & licensing markets
- Transitioning from personhood-based publicity rights to contribution-based claims would change licensing contracts: payments could be tied to contribution metrics (model design, dataset curation, ongoing governance) rather than the alleged “celebrity” of a synthetic face.
- Externalities & consumer welfare
- Misattribution and opacity about synthetic authorship can create reputational externalities and misinformation risks; economic welfare depends on transparency and accurate labeling to preserve trust in markets for creative and informational goods.
- Research agenda & policy experiments
- Quantify the economic value attributable to virtual influencers versus human creators.
- Model welfare effects of stewardship vs ownership regimes (market concentration, innovation, consumer surplus).
- Test policy interventions (mandatory disclosure, contribution-rights registries, portability, revenue-sharing rules) in sandboxed markets or through natural experiments.
- Regulatory recommendations (economics-oriented)
- Reduce legal uncertainty by defining rights around control of interfaces and contribution metrics.
- Require transparency standards for synthetic content and platform data use to reduce search and information frictions.
- Promote interoperability and data portability to prevent lock-in and preserve competitive dynamics in the influencer/advertising ecosystem.
Overall, treating virtual influencers as interfaces governed by contribution and control—rather than as proprietary persons—has significant economic implications for incentives, market structure, distribution of rents, and welfare. Empirical work is needed to quantify these effects and guide calibrated policy design.
Assessment
Paper Typetheoretical
Evidence Strengthn/a — Paper is normative and conceptual with no causal identification or quantitative empirical evidence; claims are argued via philosophical critique, doctrinal analysis, and illustrative qualitative examples rather than measured causal inference.
Methods Rigormedium — Argumentation draws on careful readings of canonical theorists, doctrinal critique, and a concrete illustrative case (Lil Miquela), and it connects legal theory to economic implications; however, it lacks systematic empirical validation, formal modeling, or pre-registered policy evaluation, limiting empirical rigor.
SampleNo quantitative sample or datasets; uses doctrinal legal texts, philosophical sources (Schopenhauer, Foucault, etc.), media coverage, platform practices, industry behavior, and a conceptual case study of the virtual influencer Lil Miquela as illustrative material.
Themesgovernance innovation labor_markets adoption
GeneralizabilityNormative and doctrinal analysis may not map cleanly onto different national legal regimes (jurisdictional variability)., Lacks empirical calibration, so economic implications are speculative and may not generalize to all platform/ecosystem structures., Focus on corporate/platform-controlled virtual identities may not apply to small-scale or decentralized creator communities., Case study (Lil Miquela) and examples are Western/Anglophone and may not reflect global cultural or regulatory contexts.
Claims (10)
| Claim | Direction | Outcome | Confidence & Evidence | Details |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Current intellectual-property and publicity-rights regimes are ill-suited to govern virtual influencers and other algorithmically produced cultural goods because they are grounded in individual authorship and personhood. Governance And Regulation | negative | Fit of existing legal regimes to algorithmically produced cultural goods |
Reading fidelity
high
Study strength
low
|
not reported
|
| Algorithmically produced cultural goods blur the distinction between human and synthetic authorship, making names and faces function as symbolic and performative markers rather than straightforward indicators of individual creative origin. Ai Safety And Ethics | negative | Clarity of authorship attribution in digital cultural production |
Reading fidelity
high
Study strength
low
|
not reported
|
| Algorithmic outputs can be original without being attributable to a stable, autonomous human author, challenging author-centered theories of originality. Innovation Output | positive | Possibility of originality without a stable human author |
Reading fidelity
high
Study strength
low
|
not reported
|
| Virtual celebrities are produced and governed through surveillance, optimization, and metrics, with corporations functioning as institutional or epistemic authorities rather than traditional individual authors. Market Structure | positive | Corporate control and governance of virtual celebrity production |
Reading fidelity
high
Study strength
low
|
not reported
|
| Expanding publicity rights to synthetic avatars could curtail creative freedom, concentrate power in platform owners, and destabilize the balance between public interest and proprietary control. Market Structure | negative | Creative freedom and concentration of proprietary control |
Reading fidelity
high
Study strength
speculative
|
not reported
|
| A legal regime based on contribution and control over interfaces would allocate rights and obligations according to who designs, trains, curates, and monetizes the interface rather than according to the nominal personhood of a virtual entity. Governance And Regulation | positive | Allocation of legal rights and obligations in virtual cultural production |
Reading fidelity
high
Study strength
speculative
|
not reported
|
| Unclear ownership of AI-generated value may increase investment uncertainty and transaction costs, while encouraging firms to hoard interfaces and potentially reducing entry and innovation. Innovation Output | negative | Investment certainty, transaction costs, market entry, and innovation |
Reading fidelity
high
Study strength
speculative
|
not reported
|
| Legal ambiguity surrounding virtual influencers favors large incumbents that control data, models, and interfaces, and may accelerate concentration in advertising and attention markets. Market Structure | negative | Market concentration in advertising and attention markets |
Reading fidelity
high
Study strength
speculative
|
not reported
|
| Synthetic authorship that is misattributed or insufficiently disclosed can create reputational externalities and misinformation risks, making transparency and accurate labeling important for trust in creative and informational markets. Consumer Welfare | negative | Consumer trust and information quality in creative and informational markets |
Reading fidelity
high
Study strength
speculative
|
not reported
|
| The paper does not provide formal economic modeling or measured impact estimates for the proposed legal changes, leaving empirical validation and policy calibration for future research. Governance And Regulation | null_result | Availability of quantitative evidence on the economic effects of proposed legal reforms |
Reading fidelity
high
Study strength
high
|
not reported
|