Safeguarding Artistic Legacy in the Age of AI: The Case of Osamu Tezuka

Would Tezuka have wanted his work to be replicated? If the answer is yes, could he have wanted it to be done in a specific way? Would he have approved of TEZUKA 2020?

In this short blog, we consider how the use of AI can replicate an artist’s style after the artist’s death, and ways in which artists can safeguard their legacy through estate planning.

The Osamu Tezuka Case

The TEZUKA 2020 project represents a groundbreaking initiative that bridges traditional art and advanced AI technology. Named in honour of Osamu Tezuka, the project was a tribute to his innovative spirit and his body of work. Its primary goal was to revive Tezuka’s artistic style through modern tools, using artificial intelligence to analyse and produce a new work that would look and feel like a manga created by the artist.

The creation of Phaedo involved more than simply mimicking Tezuka’s designs; it required a nuanced understanding of his narrative depth, characters, and stylistic choices. To achieve this, developers trained AI models on a vast archive of Tezuka’s original work. In order to learn the essence of Tezuka’s work and his characteristics as a writer, AI analysed 130 manga episodes, written and drawn by Tezuka, including globally famous titles such as “Astro Boy” and “Black Jack”.  Based on this analysis, the AI engine generated 129 candidate storylines. The AI engine then studied 6,000 images and applied transfer learning to generate visuals for the characters. This training allowed the AI engine to internalize Tezuka’s stylistic features, including his bold character expressions, exaggerated emotions, and dynamic compositions. One of the key challenges was ensuring that the new work went beyond superficial mimicry, capturing the subtle emotional undertones and storytelling depth characteristic of Tezuka’s work. Unlike traditional animation techniques, which rely on manual sketches and visual cues, the AI engine had to interpret and generate characters that resonated with Tezuka’s distinct themes, including empathy, humanity, and moral ambiguity.

Phaedo is the story of a homeless philosopher and his robot bird, Apollo, who try to solve crimes in Tokyo in 2030. This marks the first time Tezuka’s work has been recreated in 30 years. The results were published in Japan’s Morning magazine in February 2020, where Phaedo quickly gained attention, generating significant media exposure and discussions about the ethical and creative implications of AI in artistic production.

Dead-Hand Planning For AI

The Phaedo project brings to light critical questions about how artists can protect and preserve their legacy in a world increasingly influenced by technology. Creating art that endures beyond the artist's lifetime does not automatically ensure that it will be cared for, displayed, or sold according to the artist's wishes. To safeguard the artist's intentions, it is crucial to provide clear instructions on how your artistic output should be handled.

Artists may consider safeguards and guidance to control how their work is used by their heirs (this is known as “dead hand planning”). The artist could define how their images, writings, or characters may be used or adapted in different media formats, including digital or AI-related adaptations. This is particularly relevant as artificial intelligence grows more capable of creating new works with the look and feel of the artist’s own work (as seen in the TEZUKA 2020 project).

Dead hand planning is tightly regulated and the extent of artists’ control beyond their lifetime over their artistic output varies from country to country.  In the UK, the rule against perpetuities prevents people from using legal instruments (usually a deed or a will) to exert control over the ownership of private property for too long a period of time beyond the lives of people living at the time the instrument was written. 

Control can also be exercised through the artist’s moral rights in countries where those rights are more developed, e.g. the UK and the EU. Artists can leave explicit instructions on how their moral rights should be exercised after their death, and by whom. In some countries, like the UK, moral rights expire 70 years after the end of the year of death of the artist (except the right to object to false attribution which expires after only 20 years).

There is support available for artists committed to planning their legacy in the age of AI.  In the UK, the market leader is Artistate.  In Continental Europe, the Institute for Artists and Estates is an invaluable resource.   In the US, information and support can be found at the Center for the Preservation of Artists Legacy and at the Artists’ Legacy Foundation.