AI and copyright Part Two

My MP replied to my letter concerning the unauthorized use of copyright material by AI companies as follows:

Dear Mr Jacobs,

Thank you for taking the time to write to me about the Data (Use and Access) Bill, as well as artificial intelligence (AI) and copyright.

In particular, thank you for sharing your personal professional experience. I take the point about the value of the publishing sector to Britain. 
 
The British Government has rightly identified both artificial intelligence and the creative industries as key growth sectors. They are also both increasingly interlinked. AI is already being used across creative industries, including music and film production, publishing, architecture, and design. As of September 2024, more than 38 per cent of Creative Industries businesses said they have used AI technologies.
 
While AI has the potential to transform the creative sector, I recognise that many artists, writers, and designers have sincere fears that AI could detrimentally affect their earnings and, ultimately, their way of life. Current laws make it difficult for creators to control or seek payment for the use of their work. It is also true that present ambiguities in the law create legal risks for AI firms, and could deter developers from investing and developing their products in the UK.
 
Therefore, I welcome the Government's launch of a consultation into the legal relationship between creative industries and AI developers. The Government is seeking to simultaneously ensure protection and payment for rights holders and support AI developers in innovating responsibly. I understand that key areas of the consultation include boosting trust and transparency between the sectors, so that rights holders better understand how AI developers are using their material and how it has been obtained. The consultation will run until the 25th February 2025.
 
The consultation also explores how creators can license and be remunerated for the use of their material. The Government proposes allowing rights holders to reserve their rights, so they can control the use of their content, while also introducing an exception to copyright law for AI training for commercial purposes. This is an effective opt-out which means that creators would have to reaffirm their desire to protect their work. Worryingly, this position appears to place the major technology companies at a considerable advantage, and I know my colleague Dame Caroline Dinenage MP has raised this directly with the Prime Minister in Parliament.
 
Currently, as the Data (Use and Access) Bill was introduced in the House of Lords, it has to pass through multiple stages over several months before Members of Parliament will have the chance to vote on it at second reading. I shall monitor developments in this area, especially the outcome of the consultation, closely
 
Thank you again for taking the time to contact me.

Yours sincerely,

Jack Rankin MP
Windsor

 I have sent him the following additional observations: 

Dear Mr Rankin,

Thank you for your thoughtful response to my letter. I am particularly encouraged that your colleague Caroline DInenage has questioned whether rights holders should be required to opt out of their work being used (without permission, consultation or communication) by AI companies. I would recommend instead an approach akin to that which applies in the case of moral rights, and that exists already in copyright law and is well established. Moral rights, as the government's own website states (https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-rights-granted-by-copyright) automatically protect rights holders and can only fail to apply if a rights holder actively waives the rights: "Unlike economic rights, moral rights cannot be sold or otherwise transferred. However, the rights holder can choose (my emphasis) to waive these rights."

I am not entirely convinced that the behaviour of AI companies stems from ambiguities in the law. I have read that Mark Zuckerberg was asked to approve the use of copyright works from a website known to host pirated material and was alerted to the risks of doing so. If reports are correct, he authorised such use - this behaviour does not smack of ambiguity. Moreover, there already exist collecting societies that for a long time have defended the rights of rights holders in cases such as photocopying/scanning works, broadcast use of music and so on. AI companies could have consulted those societies if they felt that legal ambiguities were an impediment.

Ill-informed excitement about new technologies can be dangerous. I recall that e-readers were confidently predicted some two or three decades ago to result in the death of the printed book. The ways that books are read have indeed changed and become more varied, but technology did not kill the printer book. I trust that ministers and our elected representatives will not, perhaps unwittingly, facilitate the decline, or even the demise, of the printed book.

Thank you for your attention.

Yours sincerely,

Ian Jacobs

15 Upper Village Road

Sunninghill SL5 7BA