The Government has been defeated in the Lords over measures to protect creatives from having their copyrighted work used to train AI models without permission or remuneration.
Peers voted 145 to 126, majority 19, in favour of a package of amendments to the Data (Use and Access) Bill aiming to tackle the unauthorised use of intellectual property by big tech companies scraping data for AI.
Proposing the amendments, digital rights campaigner Baroness Kidron said they would help enforce existing property rights by improving transparency and laying out a redress procedure.
There is a role in our economy for AI... and there is an opportunity for growth in the combination of AI and creative industries, but this forced marriage on slave terms is not it.
The measures would explicitly subject AI companies to UK copyright law, regardless of where they are based, reveal the names and owners of web crawlers that currently operate anonymously and allow copyright owners to know when, where and how their work is used.
This, she said, would “protect the incomes of the UK’s second most valuable industrial sector”.
Lady Kidron’s group of amendments received cross-party support, with both Labour and Conservative peers rebelling against their own front benches to back the measures.
This comes after the Government suggested it may introduce an exemption to copyright law for “text and data mining”. A consultation on the issue is currently underway and is due to end on February 25.
Independent crossbench peer Lady Kidron said the Government’s stated preferred option of an “opt-out” system would simply “give away other people’s living and their VAT contribution to the Treasury and with it the jobs, joy and soft power of our creative industries that our country relies on globally”.
Lady Kidron, who is an advisor to the Institute of Ethics in AI at Oxford University, added: “What we have before us is the most extraordinary sight of a Labour Government transferring wealth directly from 2.4 million individual creatives, SMEs and UK brands on the promise of vague riches in the future.
“There is a role in our economy for AI… and there is an opportunity for growth in the combination of AI and creative industries, but this forced marriage on slave terms is not it.
“We have a Government who puts growth front and centre, stunting one of its most lucrative industries.
“And we have the equally extraordinary sight of the Conservatives opposite who, for the most part, are sitting on their hands against the wishes of many in their tribe, putting party ahead of country, because they prefer to have proof of the Government’s economic incompetence rather than protect the property rights of its citizens and creative industries…
“I do however think that, given the scale of the theft and the audacity of the robber barons, (creatives) should be able to turn to the government for protection, rather than suggesting we redefine the notion of theft.”
She concluded: “Despite the immense pleasure and extraordinary soft power that the creative industries bring, it is a hard-nosed, incredibly competitive and successful sector, a sector that takes skill, training, talent to pursue what is often an insecure career in which the copyright of career highs pays for the costs of a freelance life and the ongoing costs of making new work.”
She thanked Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Elton John, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Jeanette Winterson, Kate Moss, Sir Simon Rattle, Richard Osman, Kate Bush and “all the other 40,000 artists, writers and musicians who have added their name to this fight”.
Backing the amendments, deputy chairman of the Telegraph Media Group, Tory peer Lord Black of Brentwood said: “An effective, enforceable and comprehensive copyright regime is absolutely fundamental to the sustainability of a free, independent media. Without it, the media cannot survive.
“Without adequate transparency, control and reward, I have this stark warning: publishers will no longer be able to invest as they have in the creation of original, high-quality investigative content on which our democracy and the accountability of those in power is based.”
He added: “I am deeply disappointed that the long-standing commitment of my party to upholding the value of a free press and supporting the sustainability of the British media has not extended to formal support for these amendments – it is incredibly short-sighted.”
Shadow technology minister Viscount Camrose said: “Given the importance of getting this right, our view is that the Government’s consultation is in mid-flight and we have to allow it to do its work… It offers, for now, a way forward that will evidence some of the very serious concerns expressed here.
“That said, we will take a great interest in the progress and outcome of that consultation and will come back to this in future should the Government’s response to the consultation prove unsatisfactory.”
Responding, technology minister Lord Vallance of Balham said: “Rest assured the Government understands the very strong and legitimate concern which creators and right-holders have about how their content is used by the AI sector and how powerless they often feel.
“We want to create stronger, practical ways for them to control the use of content and greater transparency over it and how it is used as well as creating the right conditions for AI innovation.
“There needs to be workable solutions and workable means workable for the creators as well as the AI companies.”
He added: “Legislating on transparency, web crawlers, watermarks or other issues without evidence on their impact or the type of technologies, oversight and enforcement needed to make them work would be premature.”
