Francesca ROTOLO

Research Profile
MSCA Global Postdoctoral Fellow (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice) specialising in digital law, copyright law and data protection law.

She graduated with honours and special commendation from the University of Bari “Aldo Moro” (supervisor: Prof. G. Resta) with a thesis on security interests over intangible assets, developed during a research period at the University of Bordeaux, where she had the opportunity to compare the French and Italian approaches to the subject. After graduating, she specialised in data protection law and intellectual property law, working as a lawyer with prestigious law firms.

She earned her PhD in “Law, Market and Person” (supervisor: Prof. C. Irti) at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice in 2024. In 2022, as part of her doctoral studies, she was a Visiting PhD Student at DReDIS (Laboratoire du Droit de l’Immatériel de la Sorbonne), IRJS, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.

Her research adopts an Italian and EU law perspective on copyright and digital law, focusing on the repercussions of digital technologies – including generative artificial intelligence – on contemporary social, economic and legal frameworks.

She was awarded a prestigious EU-funded MSCA Global Postdoctoral Fellowship for the project “musAIc” (2025-2028), which explores the impacts of generative AI on the music industry as “systemic risks” under the Artificial Intelligence Act. Within the same project, she was a Visiting Scholar at Columbia Law School, New York, from January to July 2026, under the supervision of Prof. Jane C. Ginsburg, and she is currently a Visiting Scholar at the University of Zurich, under the supervision of Prof. Johannes Liebrecht.

She is also a member of the ALAI Italia working groups on AI and on the music and phonographic sector.

Her book Generative AI’s “Creative” Process in the Era of Privatisation of Knowledge is forthcoming with Brill | Nijhoff.

Academic Positions
Current

•     MSCA Global Postdoctoral Fellow (Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions), project “musAIc”, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and University of Zurich (December 2025 – present).

•     Visiting Scholar, University of Zurich, under the supervision of Prof. Johannes Liebrecht (August 2026 – present).

•     Cultore della materia (recognised subject expert, member of examination boards) in Private Law, Department of Management, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (February 2021 – present).

Previous

•     Visiting Scholar, Columbia Law School, New York, under the supervision of Prof. Jane C. Ginsburg (January 2026 – July 2026).

•     Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Age-It partnership (“Ageing Well in an Ageing Society”), Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (December 2023 – November 2025).

•     Visiting Scholar, CREATe Centre, University of Glasgow (May 2025).

•     University Tutor in Private Law, Department of Management, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (February 2021 – September 2023).

•     University Tutor in European Private Law, Department of Economics, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (February 2023 – September 2023).

•     Visiting PhD Student, DReDIS – Laboratoire du Droit de l’Immatériel de la Sorbonne, Institut de recherche juridique de la Sorbonne (IRJS), Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (January 2022 – September 2022).

Education
•     PhD in “Law, Market and Person”, Department of Economics, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (September 2020 – May 2024). Thesis in Copyright Law: “AI-Generated Works e diritto d’autore nell’era del capitalismo cognitivo. Un’occasione di riaffermazione della funzione sociale della proprietà intellettuale” [AI-Generated Works and Copyright in the Era of Cognitive Capitalism: An Opportunity to Reaffirm the Social Function of Intellectual Property]. Supervisor and programme coordinator: Prof. Claudia Irti. Final assessment: Excellent.

•     Master’s Degree in Law, Faculty of Law, University of Bari “Aldo Moro” (a.y. 2014/2015), 110/110 cum laude with special commendation. Thesis in Civil Law: “Le garanzie mobiliari sui beni immateriali. La riforma francese e l’approccio italiano” [Security Interests over Intangible Assets: The French Reform and the Italian Approach]. Supervisor: Prof. Giorgio Resta.

•     Erasmus+ exchange student, Faculté de Droit, Université de Bordeaux (January 2015 – June 2015).

•     High school diploma, “Licenza liceale classica”, at Liceo Classico “Tito Livio” (100/100), Martina Franca, TA, 2010.

Grants, Fellowships and Awards
•     MSCA Global Postdoctoral Fellowship (Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, EU-funded), project “musAIc” (2025-2028).

•     Co-author of the funded proposal for the PRIN PNRR 2022 project “PADS4Health (Privacy-Aware Data Sharing Model for Health Data)”, with Prof. Agostino Cortesi, Dr Alessandro Bernes (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice) and Dr Shaira Thobani (University of Turin) (2022–2023).

•     Selected participant, EPIP 2024 PhD Workshop, held within the EPIP Annual Conference “Intellectual Property and the Future of the Data Economy” (10 September 2024).

•     Prize for the article “Creativity vs. Originality: The Qualification of ‘Work of Ingenuity’ in the Age of Artificial Intelligence”, competition organised by the Diritto della Moda e delle Arti (March 2023).

Publications
Monograph

•     F. Rotolo, Generative AI’s “Creative” Process in the Era of Privatisation of Knowledge, Brill | Nijhoff, forthcoming.

Journal Articles

•     F. Rotolo, “Rethinking Property Rights in the Age of Climate Change: Lessons from the Japanese Commons and the Italian Approach”, Asian Eastern Law Review (Rivista di Diritto dell’Asia Orientale), 2025, forthcoming.

•     F. Rotolo, “Le digital wars tra istanze di sicurezza nazionale e gigantismo delle piattaforme: che fine hanno fatto gli utenti?” [Digital Wars between National Security Concerns and Platform Gigantism: What Has Become of Users?], Il Foro italiano, 6/2025.

•     F. Rotolo, “Le discriminazioni indirette nella ricerca scientifico-farmacologica e il difficile esercizio del diritto di accesso alle cure: quale ruolo per la proprietà intellettuale?” [Indirect Discrimination in Pharmacological Research and the Difficult Exercise of the Right of Access to Care: What Role for Intellectual Property?], Familia, 2023.

•     F. Rotolo, “Il diritto alla cura degli anziani tra vulnerabilità, logiche di mercato e brevettabilità della salute: la necessità di un ripensamento della proprietà intellettuale in chiave sostenibile” [The Right to Care for Older People between Vulnerability, Market Logic and the Patentability of Health: The Need to Rethink Intellectual Property Sustainably], Jus Civile, 4/2023.

•     F. Rotolo, “Riflessioni a margine di una recente pronuncia della Cassazione: un’occasione persa per ridefinire gli interessi in gioco in materia di banche dati e software” [Remarks on a Recent Ruling of the Court of Cassation: A Missed Opportunity to Redefine the Interests at Stake in Databases and Software], Diritto di Internet, 2/2023.

•     F. Rotolo, “Creatività vs. originalità: la qualificazione di «opera dell’ingegno» nell’era dell’intelligenza artificiale” [Creativity vs. Originality: The Qualification of ‘Work of Ingenuity’ in the Age of Artificial Intelligence], Rassegna di Diritto della Moda e delle Arti, 2/2022.

•     F. Rotolo, “Diritto alla vita privata e tutela della proprietà intellettuale: un bilanciamento ponderato tra gli interessi in gioco” [The Right to Respect for Private Life and the Necessary Balance with Intellectual Property Rights], Rivista di Diritto dei Media, 1/2019.

•     F. Rotolo, “La tutela della persona tra libertà di informazione e diritto alla vita privata” [The Protection of the Person between Freedom of Information and the Right to Private Life], La Nuova Giurisprudenza Civile Commentata, 9/2017.

Book Chapters

•     F. Rotolo, “Diritto d’autore e intelligenza artificiale: il controllo dei contenuti online tramite sistemi di automatic filtering” [Copyright and Artificial Intelligence: Controlling Online Content through Automatic Filtering Systems], in C. Camardi (ed.), La via europea per l’intelligenza artificiale. Atti del Convegno del Progetto Dottorale di Alta Formazione in Scienze Giuridiche – Ca’ Foscari Venezia, 25–26 novembre 2021, CEDAM, 2023.

•     G.M. Riccio, F. Rotolo, “La tutela in Italia delle opere dell’ingegno create dall’intelligenza artificiale: la necessità di un’analisi in chiave prospettica” [The Protection of AI-Generated Works in Italy: The Need for a Forward-Looking Analysis], in B. Pasa (ed.), Design e innovazione digitale. Dialogo interdisciplinare per un ripensamento delle tutele [Design and Digital Innovation: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue for Reshaping Legal Protections], Comparative Art Law – Diritto comparato dell’arte, ESI, 2021.

•     F. Rotolo, Commentaries on Articles 31, 32 and 80 GDPR, in G.M. Riccio, G. Scorza, E. Belisario (eds.), GDPR e normativa privacy. Commentario, IPSOA, 2018; 2nd ed., 2022.

Conference Proceedings

•     F. Rotolo, “Intellectual Property Law and Distributive Justice: A New (?) Path for Copyright Law?”, in Proceedings of the 2025 ATRIP Annual Congress “Exploring the Interface Between Intellectual Property and Justice: Theory and Practice in a Dynamic Reality”, forthcoming.

•     B. Pasa, F. Rotolo, “AI-Generated Images, Creativity, and the Law: Balancing Copyright and Artistic Freedom”, in Proceedings of the Conference Ethics and Aesthetics of Artificial Images (EA-AI 2025), forthcoming.

•     F. Rotolo, “The Unbearable (and Unsustainable) Social Impact of AI-Generated ‘Cultural Monism’ and EU Digital Legislation”, in Proceedings of the SIRD Conference, forthcoming.

•     F. Rotolo, “AI-Generated ‘Cultural Monism’ in the Era of Knowledge Capitalism: The Systematic Risk Raised by GenAI Systems as Systemic Risk and the Uncertain Role of Copyright Law”, in Proceedings of the 2024 EPIP Annual Conference, 2024.

•     T. Scantamburlo, P. Falcarin, C. Gallese, F. Rotolo et al., “Software Systems Compliance with the AI Act: Lessons Learned from an International Challenge”, in Proceedings of the RAIE Workshop, ACM ICSE 2024, ACM, 2024, DOI: 10.1145/3643691.3648589.

Case Notes and Commentaries

•     F. Rotolo, Commentary on “La risoluzione del Parlamento europeo del 10 marzo 2026 sul diritto d’autore e l’intelligenza artificiale generativa. Opportunità e sfide (2025/2058(INI))”, Persona e Mercato – OGID update section, 1/2026.

•     F. Rotolo, Commentary on Getty Images (US) Inc & Ors v Stability AI Ltd [2025] EWHC 2863 (Ch), Persona e Mercato – OGID update section, 4/2025.

•     F. Rotolo, Commentary on the U.S. Copyright Office Report “Copyright and Artificial Intelligence – Part 3: Generative AI Training”, Persona e Mercato – OGID update section, 2/2025.

•     F. Rotolo, Commentary on the U.S. Copyright Office Report “Copyright and Artificial Intelligence – Part 2: Copyrightability”, Persona e Mercato – OGID update section, 1/2025.

•     F. Rotolo, Commentary on the Assosoftware “Codice di condotta per il trattamento dei dati personali effettuato dalle imprese di sviluppo e produzione di software gestionale”, Persona e Mercato – OGID update section, 4/2024.

Conference Presentations
•     “The Lay* Listener. A Qualified Observer for Assessing Cultural Diversity in AI Music?”, EPIP 2026 Annual Conference “Intellectual Property and Innovation Policy in the New Global Economy”, Politecnico di Torino, Turin (9–11 September 2026).

•     “The Constitutional Dimensions of Intellectual Property Law in Light of Cultural Diversity: A Comparison between Article I of the U.S. Constitution and Article 17 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights”, ATRIP 2026 Annual Congress “Intellectual Property and Politics: From Power Relations to Realpolitik”, University of São Paulo Law School (1 July 2026).

•     “Care Work for Vulnerable Elderly People in a Comparative Perspective: The Role of the Family Caregiver in Italy, France and Spain”, Age-It General Meeting, Naples (29–31 October 2025).

•     “Care Work in France and Spain: Family Caregivers for Vulnerable Older People in a Comparative Law Perspective”, conference “Silver Society, Law, and Rights: Between Work and Care”, Bocconi University, Milan (9 October 2025).

•     “Intellectual Property Law and Distributive Justice: A New Path Toward a More Sustainable Copyright Law?”, ATRIP 2025 Annual Congress “Exploring the Interface Between Intellectual Property and Justice: Theory and Practice in a Dynamic Reality”, University of Copenhagen (24 June 2025).

•     “e-Health and Digital Healthcare: Addressing the Techno-Vulnerability of the Elderly, Access Issues, and the Need for Intersectional Analysis”, international workshop “Sustainable Mobility and Accessibility: Gender Issues and Ageing Population. Emerging Trends and Policy Challenges” (Age-It programme), Department of Economics and Finance, University of Bari “Aldo Moro” (11 October 2024).

•     “The Unbearable (and Unsustainable) Social Impact of AI-Generated ‘Cultural Monism’ in the Era of Knowledge Capitalism”, SIRD National Conference “Ambiente, economia e società: la misura della sostenibilità nelle diverse culture giuridiche” (13 September 2024).

•     “AI-Generated ‘Cultural Monism’ in the Era of Knowledge Capitalism: The Systematic Risk Raised by GenAI Systems as Systemic Risk and the Uncertain Role of Copyright Law”, EPIP 2024 Annual Conference “Intellectual Property and the Future of the Data Economy” (12 September 2024).

•     “The ‘Techno-Vulnerability’ of Elderly People in the Elder Care Sector”, Age-It General Meeting “Ageing Well in an Ageing Society” (20 May 2024).

•     Presentation at the XXXIX Meeting of Italian Doctoral Programmes in Private Law (“Coordinamento dei Dottorati di Ricerca in Diritto Privato”), University of Siena (2 February 2024).

•     “Discrimination against Women (and the Elderly) in Pharmacological Research and the Need to Rethink Intellectual Property Sustainably”, Rencontres des Écoles doctorales de Venise et Paris Nanterre (12–14 October 2023).

•     Speaker, session “ChatGPT, OpenAI and Privacy”, 2023 Privacy Symposium Conference (20 April 2023).

•     Presentations at the kick-off meeting (11–12 June 2018) and interim review (23 October 2019) of the EU Horizon 2020 project PoSeID-on (Digital Security, Grant No. 786713).

Invited Talks, Seminars and Book Presentations
•     Organiser and speaker, Lectio magistralis by Prof. Jane C. Ginsburg (Columbia Law School), “Veri falsi: la tutela giuridica delle persone dinanzi ai deepfake”, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (to be held on 17 November 2026).

•     Speaker, “musAIc – An Interdisciplinary Analysis of GenAI’s Systemic Risk to Cultural Pluralism in the Music Sector”, Visiting Scholar Forum, Columbia Law School, New York (21 April 2026).

•     Speaker, “The Role of IP Law in Mitigating Knowledge Capitalism’s Impacts on the Freedom of the Arts and Sciences and Cultural Pluralism”, IP Reading Group, CREATe Centre, University of Glasgow (27 May 2025).

•     Seminar “L’approccio basato sul rischio nel GDPR e nell’AI Act” [The Risk-Based Approach in the GDPR and the AI Act], Progetto Dottorale di Alta Formazione in Scienze Giuridiche, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (10 April 2024).

•     Seminar “Intellectual Property Law and Generative AI”, Department of Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, at the invitation of Prof. Agostino Cortesi (8 June 2023).

•     Speaker, panel discussion “ChatGPT: Artificial Intelligence Software and Impacts on Data Protection”, with Guido Scorza (Board Member, Italian Data Protection Authority – Garante per la protezione dei dati personali), organised by the DPO Innovation association (12 June 2023).

•     Speaker, workshop “Copyright and New Technologies”, The Spark Creative Hub, Naples (25 May 2022).

•     Speaker, workshop “Privacy in Artificial Intelligence and Big Data. Business Applications and Social Implications”, PrivacyConnect Rome by OneTrust (21 April 2022).

•     Discussant at book presentations:

- D. Kennedy, Violenza maschile, sexy dressing e eroticizzazione del dominio, M.R. Marella, G. Marini (eds.), Interferenze, Editoriale Scientifica, 2022 (23 May 2024).

- S. Garattini, Brevettare la salute? Una medicina senza mercato, Il Mulino, 2022 (8 February 2024).

- G. Zaccaria, Postdiritto. Nuove fonti, nuove categorie, Il Mulino, 2022 (23 February 2023).

- R. Senigaglia, C. Irti, A. Bernes (eds.), Privacy and Data Protection in Software Services, Springer, 2022 (18 October 2022).

- C. Irti, Consenso “negoziato” e circolazione dei dati personali, Giappichelli, 2021 (17 June 2022).

Teaching
Courses

•     Lecturer, “Data Management and Legal Issues”, Master’s Degree in Digital and Public Humanities, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (a.y. 2024/2025 and 2025/2026).

Guest Lectures

•     “The Protection of AI-Generated Works in EU IP Law”:

- Internet and E-commerce Law (Prof. Claudia Irti), Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (a.y. 2024/2025 and 2025/2026).

- Intellectual Property Law (Prof. Barbara Pasa), IUAV University of Venice (11 April 2024).

- International Economic Law (Dr Giulia Bazzoni), University of Verona (9 April 2024).

- Degree Programme in Digital and Public Humanities (Dr Alessandro Bernes), Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (23 November 2022).

- Degree Programme in International Law for the Arts (Dr A. Vettorel), Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (6 December 2021).

•     “Il caregiver familiare dell’adulto vulnerabile in una prospettiva comparatistica” [The Family Caregiver of Vulnerable Adults in a Comparative Perspective], course “Diritto delle persone adulte con vulnerabilità” (Prof. Claudia Irti), Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (20 November 2025).

Tutoring (supplementary lectures), Ca’ Foscari University of Venice

•     Private Law (Prof. Claudia Irti), BA in Business Administration (a.y. 2020/2021 and 2022/2023).

•     Private Law (Prof. Roberto Senigaglia), BA in Business Administration (a.y. 2020/2021 and 2022/2023).

•     Private Law (Prof. Marco Ticozzi), BA in Business Administration (a.y. 2021/2022).

•     European Private Law II (Prof. Barbara Pasa), BA in Economics (a.y. 2022/2023).

Professional Training

•     “GDPR, Privacy and Data Protection”, training for employees of sports federations, healthcare companies, debt collection and credit brokerage companies (2018–2019).

•     Lecture on data subject rights under Regulation (EU) 2016/679, Advanced Course for Data Protection Officers (“Corso di perfezionamento universitario e aggiornamento professionale in materia di trattamento dei dati personali per Data Protection Officer”), European University of Rome (28 April 2018).

Research Projects and Networks
•     ALAI Italia working groups “Gruppo Tematiche AI” (coord. Avv. Deborah de Angelis) and “Gruppo Settore Musicale e Fonografico” (coord. Avv. Gianpiero Quiriconi and Avv. Benedetta Quiriconi): member (May 2026 – present).

•     Laboratorio per le Politiche della Conoscenza (LabPolK), kick-off meeting on 16 October 2026 (2026).

•     Association for Electronic Music (AFEM), Education Working Group: review of the “AI & Music Copyright: Executive Guide” (2026).

•     AI Impact Alliance (Valentine Goddard), in support of UNESCO: workshop “Co-Design of the AI, Intellectual Property and Culture Repository” (2026).

•     Co-author of the proposal “UNIagainstVAW – Universities against Gender-Based Violence against Women: Law, Art and Philosophy for Prevention” (call CERV-2024-DAPHNE), with Prof. Claudia Irti, Prof. Sara De Vido, Prof. Barbara Pasa, Prof. Michele Marzulli, Prof. Sabrina Marchetti, Prof. Laura Candiotto et al. (2024).

•     Age-It partnership, research team with Prof. Claudia Irti, Prof. Claudia Cascione, Prof. Maurizio Del Conte, Prof. Francesca De Vecchi, Dr Francesca Forlè and Dr Silvio Sonnati (2023–2024).

•     Multidisciplinary working group “Synergy4AI”, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, with Prof. Paolo Falcarin, Dr Teresa Scantamburlo, Dr Chiara Gallese, Dr Alessandro Fabris, Dr Alberto Veneri, Valentina Billa, Giorgio Piccolotto (January 2023 – November 2025).

•     University of St. Gallen Grand Challenge on Artificial Intelligence, team with Prof. Paolo Falcarin, Dr Teresa Scantamburlo, Dr Chiara Gallese et al. (2022–2023).

•     Univeristé Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, with Prof. Tristan Azzi; Observatoire de l’intelligence artificielle, with Prof. Célia Zolynski and Prof. Judith Rochfeld, during the research stay at Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (2022).

•     EU Horizon 2020 project PoSeID-on (Digital Security, Grant No. 786713), with Prof. Giovanni Maria Riccio, Prof. Guido Scorza, Prof. Ernesto Belisario, Adriana Peduto (e-lex) and Carmen Occhipinti (CyberEthics Lab.) et al. (2018–2020).

Academic Service
Editorial Activities

•     Jus Civile (ANVUR Class A journal): Member of the Editorial Board; co-editor of the French Law Observatory and of the bibliographic updates section.

•     Persona e Mercato (ed. Prof. Giuseppe Vettori): contributor to the OGID “Diritto e nuove tecnologie" [Law and New Technologies] update section.

•     Accademia – Rivista dell’Associazione dei Civilisti: Co-coordinator of the section “Dalle Corti”.

•     Contributor to the CREATe Centre blog (www.create.ac.uk/blog).

Peer Review and Committees

•     Referee, AIES-24 (AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society), double-blind peer review.

•     Referee, Edizioni Ca’ Foscari, for a chapter of L. Palumbo, S. Dal Monico (eds.), Pace e genere, tra sfide e forme di resistenza, forthcoming.

•     Programme Committee member special issue on AI transparency, ACM Journal on Responsible Computing (JRC).

•     Jury member, “The AI Act Competition”, Privacy Symposium, Venice (14 June 2024).

•     Jury member, “The AI Act Competition”, CPDP AI 2024 (22 May 2024).

Memberships
•     ALAI Italia (Italian group of the Association Littéraire et Artistique Internationale), since 2023.

•     Italian Academy of Internet Code (IAIC), since 2023.

Schools and Training
•     Workshop “IA sovrana e riarmo digitale europeo. Standard normativi e competizione globale”, organised by JODI, Sapienza University of Rome, Procida (1–3 October 2025).

•     Spring School “(re)Humanising Creativity”, CREATe Centre, University of Glasgow (15–20 May 2025).

•     Seminar series on the transposition of the Copyright Directive in Italy (“Ciclo di seminari per il recepimento in Italia della Direttiva Copyright”), ALAI Italia (February 2023 – June 2024).

•     Summer School “La responsabilità civile nell’era digitale” [Civil Liability in the Digital Age], Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (6–10 September 2021).

Languages
•     Italian: native speaker.

•     English: proficient user (C1) – IELTS, overall band score 7.0 (6 April 2019).

•     French: proficient user (C1) – TCF (Test de connaissance du français), level C1 (9 July 2021).

•     German: beginner (A1, currently enrolled).

Professional Experience (Legal Practice)
•     Lawyer, admitted to the Bari Bar Association (Ordine degli Avvocati di Bari) (2019–2025).

•     Legal consultant and attorney, Studio Legale Tributario in association with Ernst & Young, Rome (November 2019 – April 2023).

•     Legal consultant and attorney, e-lex law firm, Rome (February 2018 – November 2019).

•     Trainee lawyer (praticante avvocato), MLT Partners, Rome (January 2017 – January 2018).

•     Intern, ADL Legal LLP (now ADL Solicitors Ltd), London (June 2016 – September 2016).