Two cross-party committees of MPs have urged the government to prioritise ensuring that creators are fairly remunerated for their creative work over making it easy to train artificial intelligence models.
The MPs argued there needed to be more transparency around the vast amounts of data used to train generative AI models, and urged the government not to press ahead with plans to require creators to opt out of having their data used.
The government’s preferred solution to the tension between AI and copyright law is to allow AI companies to train the models on copyrighted work by giving them an exception for “text and data mining”, while giving creatives the opportunity to opt out through a “rights reservation” system.
The chair of the culture, media and sport committee, Caroline Dinenage, said there had been a “groundswell of concern from across the creative industries” in response to the proposals, which “illustrates the scale of the threat artists face from artificial intelligence pilfering the fruits of their hard-earned success without permission”.
She added that making creative works “fair game unless creators say so” was akin to “burglars being allowed into your house unless there’s a big sign on your front door expressly telling them that thievery isn’t allowed”.
“Aside from any changes to copyright, there needs to be much tougher requirements on transparency of the data being used to train AI models, so creators will know without ambiguity where they need to be remunerated for the use of their works.”
The culture, media and sport committee and science, innovation and technology committee were responding to a government consultation on AI and copyright, after their joint evidence session held earlier this month with representatives from AI startups and the creative industries.
The letter to ministers called on the government to improve transparency around training data to enable creators to identify the use of their works, ensure that any copyright holders who opt out aren’t penalised through reduced visibility, and enable consumers to make informed choices about which AI model to use.
The letter warned that without this, “the biggest impact would be felt by the long tail of creators and journalists already operating under financial constraints”.
Backlash to the government’s AI proposals among celebrities and the creative industries has been steadily growing in recent months. On Tuesday, more than 1,000 musicians, including Kate Bush, Damon Albarn and Annie Lennox, released a silent album in protest.
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The letter also said that although AI developers have suggested that training data constitutes a “trade secret”, both the EU and the state of California have introduced transparency requirements, including detailed technical record-keeping about training data.
It added that the government should look at encouraging companies which are developing per-use revenue sharing models, which it says “could move [generative] AI past its ‘Napster era’, much as Spotify did in the advent of music streaming following two decades of peer-to-peer digital piracy”.
The MPs also asked that the government publish a full impact assessment for each option proposed in the consultation, with robust mechanisms to ensure compliance, enforcement and redress when it came to copyright.
The letter said that other jurisdictions, such as the US and EU, “have not settled this issue”, despite the government’s fears that AI developers may move to countries with “clearer or more permissive rules”.
