A report by the UK’s House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee has cautioned against weakening copyright laws and called for government to support the UK in becoming a “world-leading home for responsible, licensing-based AI development”.
Published by the Lords’ Communications and Digital Committee, the report, AI, copyright and the creative industries, said the use of generative AI posed a “clear and present danger” to the UK’s creators, citing the threat of “widespread, unlicensed use of protected works” and limited transparency around how AI models have been trained.
The committee said the current copyright framework was not in need of reform, but found creators face difficulties challenging harmful outputs in the absence of robust specific protections.
Several key recommendations were put forward, calling on the government to:
Rule out a new commercial text and data mining (TDM) exception with an opt-out model. In the next year, the government should publish a final decision on its approach to AI copyright to rebuild trust. It should also state it will not introduce a TDM exception as proposed in its previous consultation.
Close gaps in protection for identity, style and digital replicas. Protections should be introduced against unauthorised digital replicas and harmful ‘in the style of’ AI outputs.
Make transparency about AI training data a statutory obligation. A clear, mandatory framework should be established alongside regulatory tools to promote compliance.
Create the conditions for a fair and inclusive UK licensing market. The government should act to ensure the emerging market for licensing content for AI use is supported, backing the creation of tools to enable a licensing-first approach.
Prioritise the development and adoption of sovereign AI models. The government’s sovereign AI efforts should encourage models that deliver enhanced transparency ahead of overreliance on “opaquely trained” US-based models.
Baroness Keeley, chair of the House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee, said, “Our creative industries face a clear and present danger from uncredited and unremunerated use of copyrighted material to train AI models. Photographers, musicians, authors and publishers are seeing their work fed into AI models which then produce imitations that take employment and earning opportunities from the original creators.
“AI may contribute to our future economic growth, but the UK creative industries create jobs and economic value now…Watering down the protections in our existing copyright regime to lure the biggest US tech companies is a race to the bottom that does not serve UK interests. We should not sacrifice our creative industries for AI jam tomorrow.
“The future for AI in the UK should be based on transparent and responsible use of training data. We are calling on the government to embrace the opportunities this presents, and to demonstrate its commitment to the UK’s gold-standard copyright regime and our outstanding creative industries in its forthcoming economic assessment and update on AI and copyright.”
