Artist Rights Symposium V

The fifth Artist Rights Symposium will be held on Monday, October 19 from 8:30 AM to 4:00 PM at The Lewis Room at Tweed Recording (131 E Clayton St, Athens, GA 30601).

There is no cost to attend and lunch is provided.

Panels include:

• In Our Own Backyard: Data Centers, AI Infrastructure, and the Creative Communities That Pay the Price — A View from Coweta County
• Ghost Busters: How Fans, Artists, and Venues Are Fighting Back Against Speculative Tickets — From the World Cup to the RESALE Act
• The 39 Steps: Is It Time to Scrap the Section 115 Streaming Mechanical Formula in Favor of a Fixed Per-Stream Penny Rate with a COLA?
• Beware the AI Opt-In: Hidden Right of Publicity Waivers

Learn more about each panel (including descriptions, panelist bios, and more) here.

Sponsored by Artists Rights Institute and University of Georgia Music Business Certificate Program at Terry College and the School of Public and International Affairs.

Coweta County—about 90 minutes from Athens—is where the AI debate becomes physical. Five data centers are in development, led by the 829-acre, $1.7 billion Project Sail campus, now facing a citizen lawsuit and referendum effort. These facilities are not just generic server farms: they are infrastructure for the AI boom, including systems trained on creators’ work without permission. This panel connects the upstream extraction of books, music, journalism, photographs, films and other creative work to the downstream demand for land, transmission, power and water. In Coweta County, that means infrastructure projected to consume 900 megawatts and 9 million gallons of water per day. The same AI economy disrupting creative livelihoods is also reshaping rural communities.

Panelists:

Ansley Brown, Coweta County Data Center Opposition Activist

State Senator Sonya Halpern

Dr. Moiya McTier, Executive Director, Human Artistry Campaign

Moderator: Chris Castle, Artist Rights Institute

‍Atlanta’s World Cup matches put the ghost-ticket problem in plain view: fans bought resale tickets that did not exist, amid hundreds of replica ticketing sites and thousands of fraudulent domains. The more important story is the response. In July 2026, the D.C. Council unanimously passed the RESALE Act, establishing a 10% resale cap, banning speculative ticket sales, requiring price transparency, prohibiting surveillance pricing, and registering high-volume resellers.

This panel examines the state-by-state reform movement now outpacing Congress, why D.C.’s approach may become a national model, and what Georgia venues, artists and fans can learn from it.

Panelists:

Randy Nichols, National Independent Talent Organization

Jay Gilbert, Label Logic

Moderator: Mala Sharma, Georgia Music Partners

The Section 115 streaming mechanical formula—the “39 Steps”—is a multi-step percentage-of-revenue system with deductions, floors and total-content-cost calculations. Critics argue that it is opaque, manipulable and capable of suppressing the effective value of musical works. Bundling can shrink the royalty pool, while a flood of AI-generated tracks increases the denominator against which human-created music competes.

An alternative already exists: Section 114 webcasting uses a per-performance penny rate with inflation adjustments, and physical/download mechanicals now use a fixed rate with CPI indexing. Why not streaming mechanicals?

As Phonorecords V approaches, this panel asks whether the CRB should replace the current formula with a simple, escalating per-stream rate tied to inflation—more transparent, easier to audit, and less susceptible to strategic manipulation.

Panelists: 

Tim Kappel, Wells Kappel

Gwendolyn Seale, Gwen Seale PLLC

Shannon Sorensen, National Music Publishers Association

Moderator:  Dr. David C. Lowery, Terry College of Business Music Certificate Program

As generative AI companies move from litigation toward licensing, settlements, and creator “opt-in” programs, artists and songwriters may be asked to sign agreements that do far more than authorize defined uses of their work. Some may include broad releases of past claims, perpetual covenants not to sue, irrevocable training rights, restrictions on future advocacy, opaque revenue calculations, and provisions allowing the scope of the deal to expand without renewed consent.

This panel will examine how to distinguish a genuine license from what may function as litigation protection or a permanent waiver of creator rights with compensation attached. Panelists will discuss retroactive releases, co-writer and co-owner issues, machine unlearning and termination rights, AI guardrails, ownership of model-derived “insights,” minimum guarantees and revenue deductions, MFNs and equity, downstream user protections, and clauses that may restrict what artists and songwriters can say or do after signing.

The practical question for creators and their representatives is simple: What exactly are you giving up, for how long, and can you ever get it back? The panel will approach AI agreements the way a litigator would—not just by asking what they pay, but what rights and remedies remain after the deal is signed.

Panelists:

Jen Jacobsen, Artist Rights Alliance

George Zelcs, Korein Tillery

Gwendolyn Seale, Gwen Seale PLLC

Tim Kappel, Wells Kappel

Moderator: Chris Castle, Artist Rights Institute

Info: Data Centers, AI Infrastructure, and the Creative Communities That Pay the Price

Info: How Fans, Artists, and Venues Are Fighting Back Against Speculative Tickets

Info: Is it time to ditch the streaming mechanical rev share for a penny rate?

Info: Hidden Right of Publicity Waivers

Event venue & nearby stays

Tweed Recording, 140 East Washington Street, Athens, United States

Concerts, fests, parties, meetups — all the happenings, one place.

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