The House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee
has today published the Government's response to its
report AI, copyright and
the creative industries.
While the Committee welcomes the change of direction signalled by
the Government in its March publications on AI and copyright, and
reasserted in its response to the Committee's report, it also
says it is now time to rule out any proposed reform to copyright
law that weakens incentives to strike licensing agreements. The
Committee also reiterates its call for the introduction of robust
transparency requirements for large AI developers on the content
used to train their models.
Commenting , said:
“I am pleased that the Government's response today confirms what
it set out in March: that it no longer has a preference for
introducing a broad copyright exception for AI training with an
opt-out mechanism. It was clear that this approach would have
been unworkable and placed an unfair burden on individual
rightsholders.
“The UK AI licensing market is emerging, and the Government now
needs to create the conditions that will enable it to flourish.
It can do this by ruling out any reform to copyright law that
removes incentives to licence, including proposals for a new
commercial research exception, and committing to statutory
transparency requirements for large AI developers. The Government
says it will develop ‘best practice' to encourage developers to
be more transparent about the sources they use to train their
models, but best practice alone will not promote licensing, drive
compliance or enable robust enforcement. Only a mandatory
framework will create the level playing field needed to foster
responsible training data practices.
“The coming months will be crucial in establishing a clear
direction on AI and copyright for all stakeholders. We will keep
up a continued dialogue with Ministers to ensure that the
Government is tackling these complex issues with the ambition
needed to drive meaningful progress.”
