Just days after the US Supreme Court said it would not reconsider whether AI-generated art can be copyrighted, the UK looks set to make its own big decision on AI and copyright.
The UK government has been consulting on legal reforms to intellectual property law for the past two months, with a particular focus on artificial intelligence. An update on the economic impact assessment and consultation will be published on March 18, with final results to be announced later.
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According to one of the main proposals guardianwould allow artificial intelligence companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic to use copyrighted material without the owner’s consent. Understandably, the idea sparked a backlash from artists and MPs – with Elton John calling the government an “absolute loser” at the proposal.
On Friday, the House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee published its own report on AI and copyright, warning that such proposals could destroy the UK’s £124bn creative industry due to “speculative AI gains”. The report also calls for an “opt-out” model that would allow copyright holders to exclude their works from AI training, greater transparency requirements for AI developers, and support for tools that encourage a “license-first approach” to incorporating content into AI systems.
As committee chair Baroness Barbara Keeley pointed out in a statement, AI models are already using artists’ work without consent. “Our creative industries face a clear and present danger from the unacknowledged and gratuitous use of copyrighted material to train AI models,” Keeley said. “Photographers, musicians, writers and publishers are seeing their work fed into AI models that then produce imitations, deriving employment and earning opportunities from the original creators.”
But any hopes that the consultation process will resolve the issue quickly may need to be tempered. Also on Friday, financial times According to the report, a source close to the negotiations said that copyright issues may be “on hold”. The plan appears to be to spend another year gathering evidence and exploring different options, a move seen as a concession to artists’ protests against the proposals so far.
Tech companies such as Alphabet say they support the proposed opt-out model, while movie studios and TV companies argue it is unfair and poses an “existential threat” to their industries. (It’s worth noting that digital opt-out systems, such as those used for cookies or ad tracking, tend to obtain valid consent from more users than opt-in systems.)
But as many media industry observers have pointed out, as tech companies push ahead with artificial intelligence development, even a delay in the implementation of the new rules, which is ostensibly meant to appease, will benefit them far more than artists.
