Every major UK news publisher today calls on the Government to abandon its plan to water down copyright laws which would help tech giants to scrape content without payment.
A coalition of media and entertainment companies, which between them contribute £126bn to the economy each year, today warn that Labour’s plans to make Britain an artificial intelligence hub risk being undermined if the Government does let tech firms use vast catalogues of news articles, books, video footage and photography unlicensed, without having to pay.
Every UK national newspaper has today printed identical front pages, to make the final day of a government consultation on the proposals.
Generative AI companies such as OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, need huge amounts of high-quality, human-created data to “train” the sophisticated software models to automate a huge range of tasks from writing contracts to booking holidays.
Under plans which ministers insist will put the UK at the forefront of a generative AI revolution, the Government is proposing to change copyright laws to make it easier for tech firms to use content created by British companies without payment or permission, in return for greater transparency about the data used to develop their software tools.
If any of this troubles you, and if you have 30 seconds then you can write to your MP at this link: creativerightsinai.eaction.org.uk/MP.
The Creative Rights in AI Coalition, which brings together national and local news brands alongside the wider creative industries sector, is warning that such an approach will backfire and hobble the UK economy by stripping companies of control over how what they produce is used.
The campaign adds the move would threaten jobs by depriving creative industries of revenues from the AI revolution, while undermining their existing financial models.
Under the coalition’s “Make It Fair” proposals, campaign members are calling for existing copyright laws, which explicitly ban text and data mining for commercial purposes without first obtaining licence from the copyright holder, to be upheld.
Under such an arrangement, creative industries would be able to charge tech companies for the raw material they need.
In an article setting out its goals, which is being reproduced today across the UK’s news media, in print and online, the coalition said: “There is a huge potential market for licensing the content produced by the UK’s creators that our country could take the lead in. But this will only happen if creators have proper control of the content they make and fair payment for its use.
“Without fair payment, high-quality creative content will become harder to make and this will also see generative AI innovation stall too, going against the Government’s own ambitions for growth in this sector.”
Owen Meredith, chief executive of News Media Association, said: “We already have gold-standard copyright laws in the UK. They have underpinned growth and job creation in the creative economy across the UK – supporting some of the world’s greatest creators – artists, authors, journalists, scriptwriters, singers and songwriters to name but a few.
“And for a health democratic society, copyright is fundamental to publishers’ ability to invest in trusted quality journalism. The only thing which needs affirming is that these laws also apply to AI, and transparency requirements should be introduced to allow creators to understand when their content is being used. Instead, the Government proposes to weaken the law and essentially make it legal to steal content.
“There will be no AI innovation without the high-quality content that is the essential fuel for AI models. We’re appealing to the great British public to get behind our ‘Make It Fair’ campaign and call on the Government to guarantee creatives are able to secure proper financial reward from AI firms to ensure a sustainable future for both AI and the creative industries.”
Launching a music industry campaign, backed by artists including Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Elton John, Kate Bush and Thom Yorke, to coincide with the Make It Fair campaign, Ed Newton-Rex said: “A thousand UK musicians released a joint album today, recordings of empty studios, calling on the Government to change course or risk empty studios becoming the norm.
“The Government’s proposals would hand the life’s work of the UK’s talented creators – its musicians, its writers, its artists – to AI companies, for free. The Government must change course and make it fair.”
AI developers have previously sought to argue that the use of material obtained from across the internet to build their software is key to providing the benefits available from the technology, which will in turn offer advantages to the economy as a whole.
Experts warn, however, that Britain is endangering its “world-leading” creative industries by exposing them to “new and far-reaching threats” to their productivity and revenue models from “unregulated” generative AI products.
A report published last week by Cambridge University’s Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy, which examines the relationships between digital technologies and society, found the Government should encourage licensing agreements between AI companies and creative industries.
It added the Government should ensure such deals “fully acknowledge the rights of copyright holders and fairly compensate them for the use of their works”.
Several international media companies, including The New York Times and Getty Images, have already launched lawsuits against generative AI developers for alleged copyright infringement. However, other publishers have begun signing deals with tech companies allowing access to their content and archives in return for fees or shareholdings.
The term is used for artificial intelligence software capable of creating new content – from written answers to music to moving images – based on users’ prompts and questions. These tools, which include so-called large language models (LLMs), have to be “trained” on vast quantities of human-created data to be able to return plausible and – mostly – accurate answers.
As part of its blueprint to put Britain at the forefront of developing AI technologies, the Government has proposed modifying copyright laws to allow developers to use all and any British-created material unless the owners of that content specifically “opt-out” from its use for that purpose.
The newly-formed Creative Rights in AI Coalition argues that the proposals will make it easier for tech giants to trawl British creative content – from newspaper archives to music catalogues – without payment or permission. There is concern that a key digital revenue stream will be choked off, threatening jobs.
The Make It Fair campaign launched today is asking for copyright laws to be maintained as they currently exist, allowing creators to license their content to AI companies in return for a fee. They argue that such a system would create a mutually beneficial relationship between tech companies and the creative sector.
Cahal Milmo
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