Dear Ms Goldman,
The UK’s writers/journalists need your help to stop their rights over their own works being undermined for the development of artificial intelligence (AI) models. UK writers’ works are protected by copyright, but AI developers have routinely used these works without permission or payment to build their models, which in turn can be used to devalue the work of real human writers.
Despite the central role that writers play in driving the UK’s successful creative industries, the government’s current consultation on AI policy proposes measures which would significantly reduce writers’ rights to control how and by whom their works are used. The proposals encourage a broad copyright exception that would make it difficult for authors to prevent or control the use of their work to train AI systems. The exception would provide free access to writers’ works to the commercial technology companies developing AI systems.
Under this proposal, writers would need to actively register their works to avoid them being used by AI developers, a measure that goes against the legal principle of automatically granting choice and control to authors under UK copyright law.
This so-called ‘opt out’ system is widely seen as unworkable and offers little benefit to either copyright holders or the AI companies, meaning the government is pushing to use a solution that currently doesn’t exist and that no one will willingly build. As one of 13,500 members of the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS), I understand that its survey revealed that our authors want remuneration, choice, and transparency, regarding the use of their work to train AI systems.
The key points from the ALCS survey were:
Lack of transparency and consent – 77% of writers did not know if their works had been used to train AI systems; of those that did, only 7% had given permission.
Of the respondents, 91% felt they should be asked for permission for their works to be used to train AI
96% would want remuneration if their works were used to train AI; with 92% in favour of compensation for historic use.
Authors are not opposed to the opportunities presented by technology, but it is important that if society is to embrace AI the government must:
Uphold copyright law, protecting the right of creators to choose if and how their works are used - in turn supporting a dynamic licensing market where creators are fairly compensated for their work;
Ensure transparency obligations are enforced on AI developers to disclose detailed, accurate information on the use of writers’ works used in AI training;
Support writers and other creators in receiving compensation for past, unauthorised use of their works (as suggested by the Science and Technology report on AI Governance).
As your constituent, I write to ask that you acknowledge the call of creators, and ensure that creators’ rights are not diminished at the expense of the tech sector and AI.
Will you write to Feryal Clark, Minister for AI and Digital Government and Chris Bryant, Minister for Creative Industries, Arts and Tourism, to share these concerns?
Many thanks,
Hamish
コメント