This lecture explores how privacy law has addressed the datafication of user information and considers the lessons this may hold for copyright law, which has struggled to grapple with the datafication of creativity.

Xiyin Tang is a Professor of Law at UCLA School of Law. Tang’s research focuses on the roles that technological evolution and new modes of dissemination play in the law of intellectual property. Her current research addresses how IP laws should respond to artificial intelligence and its effect on creative labor markets. Past writings have addressed the use of both public and private mechanisms—in the form of class action litigation and confidential contracts, respectively—as responses to mass digitization and, with it, potentially, mass infringement. Her publications have appeared in the Columbia Law Review, Michigan Law Review, NYU Law Review, and Yale Law Journal, among others. She is also a co-author of sections of the leading copyright law treatise Nimmer on Copyright.

Tang received her B.A. in English Literature and Creative Writing summa cum laude from Columbia University. She received her J.D. from Yale Law School, where she received the Neale M. Albert Prize for Best Paper on Art Law and twice received the Nathan Burkan Memorial Prize for Best Paper on Copyright Law. During law school, Tang served as Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Journal of Law and Technology.

Image credit: Daniela Zampieri / Better images of AI