FOr months now, the legends of music, literature, product design, visual arts and more have sounded the alarm in terms of the British government to undermine copyright law. The fight began when the government launched a consultation to regulate artificial intelligence with its own “preferred” result: let the companies to steal work protected by copyright unless the owners of this work “undress”. But withdrawal is impossible to do without the transparency of the AI. The plan is a charter for theft, because the creatives would have no idea who takes what, when and to whom.
When the government looks at a favorite result that undermines moral rights to your work and your income, you may reasonably be angry. As Ert John said last weekend: “The government is not allowed to do this to my songs. They are not allowed to do so to the songs of anyone, or to the prose of anyone.” It’s just a voice among the thousands of British creators who cry.
My colleagues and I on all sides of the Lord Chamber acted where the government has refused, adding emergency transparency measures to legislation – the Data bill (use and access) – It’s parliament. Our amendment would allow the application of the existing copyright law: copyright holders would include when, where and by whom their work was stolen to form AI. The logic being that if an AI company must disclose evidence of theft, it will not fly first. These measures, voted for increasingly increasing number by lords of all parties – and large notable notables of the government’s own tunes – were elected by a government manue of its major, but reluctant majority.
But the resistance of the Lords finally brought the Secretary of State for Technology, Peter Kyle, to the distribution box Thursday. Here he admitted with denaturation This “a lot of content has already been used and subsumed by AI models, generally from other territories and under the current law” – pending the provisions of the Lords which would prevent this very theft. He mentioned his love for Kate Bush, one of the more than 400 people, as well as Paul McCartney and Ian McKellen, who signed a letter to the Prime Minister asking for a change of policy. But his policy remained resolutely unchanged. No transparency, no calendar and no help for creatives.
Again, this week, the government has missed its chance to do things well. To support one of our largest industrial sectors, which provides 2.4 m jobs And contributes to 126 billion pounds sterling And a lot of joy for the four nations of the United Kingdom. No deputy on any side came to the rescue of the government. On the contrary, Kyle was subjected to an intervention dam that expressed an emergency with which he did not face. As a deputy said to me later: “One of our largest industrial sectors is on fire and the ministers are a picnic on the lawn with the pyromaniacs.”
With its enormous majority, the government will be able to intimidate its way to victory over a bill. But a victory for the government is a disaster for the creative industries and the indigenous economy of the British AI (which, which, moreover, was critical of the government’s approach for the way it promotes the greatest American actors).
British creative industries embody our history, they have our shared truth and tell our national history. A nation that gives its ability to tell its own story is indeed a fragile place. But the fight is not yet finished – the data bill (use and access) returns to the Lords on June 2.
