The row about copyright and AI is unhelpfully presented as a binary choice between the interests of creative industries and AI developers. In fact, it is a row between UK businesses that cover AI businesses, businesses that use AI, and creative industries – against the Governments protection of Big Tech interests, largely sited in Silicon Valley and China.
If you scratch any company, the chances are that it uses AI, whether it is British Airways using AI to design its new cabins to be as light and sturdy as possible or the rather extraordinary fact of the Beatles being up for an award at the Brits more than 42 years after John Lennon’s death (thanks to AI ‘finishing’ or, more accurately, ‘furnishing’ the track with his vocals). In these and indeed the vast majority of its uses. from image recognition in medical scans to weather forecasting, AI is a phenomenal tool that if trained well and properly monitored is powerful and indescribably brilliant.
But the quotidian and functional uses of AI sit in a context of a battle for more general purpose AI systems that know everything, can be applied to anything and can provide an unavoidable building block to future applications – including, but not limited to, being the basis for general intelligence.
Companies in this race have an insatiable appetite for what they call data, and what the rest of us might consider to be our life work, in the form of music, novels, academic papers, movies, illustration, product design, brands, and more. And then there are those who are simply looking for competitive advantage, much like the fake handbags on the pavement of any city market – if you don’t have to pay for an Ed Sheeran-like or Dua Lipa-like song, then maybe that is good enough.
Ministers keep repeating their mantra that “The copyright system isn’t working,” which is why they have to act. What they fail to say is that it isn’t working because companies are deliberately obscuring their web scrapers, failing to identify themselves and stealing copyrighted work. And rather than taking action to make web scrapers transparent, requiring them to identify themselves and to licence copyright work, the Government’s ‘action’, if you can call it that, is to propose a copyright exemption for AI training. That is, redefine theft rather than stop it.
Voices in government have suggested that this is the creative establishment standing in the way of innovation, but that does not account for the support of many from business and the broader AI community across the UK who see government proposals as a handout to Silicon Valley.
Even more surprising is the lack of understanding of what makes the creative industries work; while ministers represent the view of Silicon Valley and their vision of the UK as an AI hub, they have failed to account for the needs of the UK’s skilled creative workforce.
It may be the voices of Sir Simon Rattle, Kate Moss, Barbara Broccoli, and Elton John, but behind them sit bouncers, lighting technicians, sound recordists, wardrobe teams, makeup and hair teams, copyeditors – in fact, 2.4 million UK jobs, 70 per cent of whom live outside London. The Government has been blinded by tech titans and has forgotten the working people they claim to represent.
The binary that ministers wrongly present creates the pathway for them to give away UK property rights, but they don’t need to. The Lords Amendments in my name in the Data Bill would give rights holders transparency and would make the UK’s copyright regime fit for the age of AI.
The Government’s consultation is dead on arrival; legal counsel believe it contravenes international agreements; its preferred solution is eye-wateringly partisan, and it has NO option that is supported by creative industries or UK AI companies. If ministers want to act, the question is, why did they – after making undeliverable promises to their own backbenchers – immediately seek to overturn an amendment that would protect the interests of UK rights holders and support those companies that use AI responsibly?
A letter I got this morning signed by 8000 illustrators says, “We are astonished that the Government is making plans to do away with significant areas of our intellectual property rights, reading to hastily wrap our life’s work in attractive paper as a welcome gift to automated competitors.” To be honest, so am I. Surprised and dismayed that a government that promised so much to the creative industries and is so focused on growth is plunging the second-biggest economic sector in the UK into disarray and economic crisis – and with it, the genius of our creatives to innovate and entertain – on the promise of being Silicon Valley’s hub.
Baroness Beeban Kidron
DesignationFilm Director, Crossbench Peer, and Advisor for the Institute of Ethics in AI Oxford
