In an AI and creative industry consultation, the United Kingdom has proposed four policy proposals. One of these proposals would permit AI firms to utilize copyrighted material without the rights holders’ consent.
The United Kingdom’s government has initiated a consultation with the creative and artificial intelligence industries to address potential legal frameworks for the training of AI models on copyrighted material.
In the proposals released on December 17, the UK government proposed a variety of potential policies that the AI and creative industries could provide feedback on until February 25, 2025.
In a statement, Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology Peter Kyle stated that the indeterminacy regarding the application of copyright law to AI is impeding the maximum potential of both sectors.
“It is evident that our current AI and copyright framework does not enable our creative industries or our AI sectors to compete on a global scale,” he stated.
Several AI companies are currently facing criticism for allegedly stealing intellectual property to train their models, which has led to the UK’s consultation.
One of the four policy options would allow AI companies to use copyrighted material without the rights holders’ permission and allow commercial use for any purpose with few or no restrictions.
A different alternative would permit companies to employ copyrighted material to train AI models without restriction, provided that creative professionals and companies declined to do so.
Another option is to bolster copyright laws by mandating licensing in all instances. This will ensure that companies can only train AI models with work for which they have a license and expressed permission.
The consultation also enquires whether the government should maintain the current laws. However, the agencies responsible for the consultation acknowledge that this would lead to “the existing dearth of clarity” for AI developers and copyright holders.
Ed Newton-Rex, the CEO of Fairly Trained, a nonprofit organization that certifies AI companies that obtain licenses for their training data, stated that the changes to copyright laws would only benefit AI companies and “cause enormous, irreversible damage to creators.” He is a British composer.
Newton-Rex stated that certain modifications are misleading due to the fact that a copyright exception would render it permissible to train on copyrighted work without a license, which is currently illegal.
Meanwhile, Owen Meredith, the chief executive of the News Media Association, stated in a statement on December 17 that the government’s consultation does not address the genuine issue, which is the necessity of robust enforcement and transparency requirements to safeguard the rights of creatives.
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