The fourth and final day of Committee Stage on 18 December 2024 saw close scrutiny of provisions in the Data (Use and Access) Bill related to IP, copyright and AI. This was also the aspect of the Bill that gained the most media attention thanks to an intervention by Paul McCartney and 37,000 others concerned with what is described as mass copyright theft by companies building generative AI models.
The Data Bill is an important piece of legislation that aims to “harness the power of data for economic growth, as well as supporting digital government and improving lives”. Committee Stage offers myself and colleagues the opportunity to go through the draft legislation line by line, asking questions and suggesting changes.
The day before the debate the Government published a consultation seeking views on the UK’s legal framework for AI and copyright. The Government’s plans include a broad new copyright exception for commercial generative AI training, something that would allow AI companies to train on British copyrighted works without a license.
The UK’s existing copyright regime only allows text and data mining without a licence or permission for non-commercial research use. Creatives therefore argue that the use of their copyrighted work by commercial generative AI firms is illegal and represents copyright theft on a mass scale.
The proposed legal change relies on the introduction of an opt-out system for copyright holders, which would permit AI companies to use copyrighted material by default unless rights holders explicitly request to opt out.
During the debate Baroness Kidron clearly explained the impact on the creative industry and individuals livliehoods.
Text and data mining without licence or permission is illegal in the UK, unless it is done specifically for research. This means that what we have witnessed over the past few years is intellectual property theft on a vast scale. Like many of the issues we have discussed in Committee, this wrongdoing has happened in plain sight of regulators and successive Governments. I am afraid that yesterday’s announcement of a consultation did not bring the relief the industry needs. As Saturday’s Times said,
“senior figures in the creative sector are scathing about the government plans”,
suggesting that the Secretary of State has drunk Silicon Valley’s “Kool-Aid” and that rights reservation is nonsense. An official at the technical briefing for the consultation said that
“rights reservation is a synonym for opt out”.
Should shopkeepers have to opt out of shoplifters? Should victims of violence have to opt out of attacks? Should those who use the internet for banking have to opt out of fraud? I could go on. I struggle to think of another situation where someone protected by law must proactively wrap it around themselves on an individual basis.
The value of our creative industries is not in question; nor is the devastation that they are experiencing as a result of non-payment of IP. A recent report from the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers, which represents more than 5 million creators worldwide, said that AI developers and providers anticipate the market for GAI music and audiovisual content increasing from €3 billion to €64 billion by 2028 —much of it derived from the unlicensed reproduction of creators’ works, representing a transfer of economic value from creators to AI companies. Let there be no misunderstanding of the scale of the theft: we already know that the entire internet has been downloaded several times without the consent or financial participation of millions of copyright holders.
This transfer of economic value from writers, visual artists and composers across all formats and all genres to AI companies is not theoretical. It is straightforward: if you cannot get properly paid for your work, you cannot pay the rent or build a career.
Baroness Kidron, December 18 2024, House of Lords
The economic value of the creative industry is significant, contributing £126 billion in gross value added to UK GDP and employing 2.4 million people but musicians, writers, artists make such a contribution not only to our economy, but to our society, and our well-being. I fully support all the amendments put forward by Baroness Kidron and colleagues that aim to ensure the continuous sustainable production of human-generated content into the future. The amendments would not extend the fundamentals of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, but would ensure that the law can be enforced on both AI developers and third parties that scrape on their behalf.
I put forward my own related amendment that would prohibit the development, deployment, marketing and sale of data related to an individual’s image, likeness or personality for AI training or product development without that individual’s express consent. As I said during the debate,
I have put down “image, likeness and personality” not because I believe that they stand as the most important rights that are being transgressed or that they are the most important rights which we should consider; I have put them down to give a specific focus on them because, right now, they are being largely cut across and ignored, so that all of our creatives find themselves with their works, but also image, likeness and personality, disappearing into these largely foundation AI models with no potential for redress.
Once parts of you such as your name, face or voice have been ingested, as the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, said in the previous group, it is difficult then to have them extracted from the model. There is no sense, for example, of seeking an equitable remedy to put one back in the situation had the breach not occurred. It is almost “once in, forever in”, then works start to be created based on those factors, features and likenesses, which compete directly with the creatives. This is already particularly prevalent in the music industry.
Lord Holmes of Richmond, December 16 2024, House of Lords
The Bill is back in the Lords at Report Stage from 21 January and it will be interesting to see if there is any movement from the Government on this key issue.
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