ALCS submission to Government’s AI and copyright consultation
We’re asking the Government to insist on transparency, to abandon the idea of the exception and opt-out, and instead to consider a progressive, mutually-beneficial approach to copyright.
Today, ALCS submitted its response to the Government consultation on AI and copyright.
The Consultation, launched just prior to Christmas, has attracted a lot of media attention, with creatives from across all sectors coming together to urge the Government to reconsider their approach, ensure that creatives are treated fairly and ensure the creative sectors are not pitted against big tech. Instead, the Government is encouraged to find a solution that everyone can benefit from.
Thousands of individual creators and creative organisations have responded. ALCS’s response to the consultation focused on the following key points:
- Transparency
The Government said that they wanted any system to be transparent, with which we wholeheartedly agree, transparency is essential.
Without the necessary clarity around what is being used, by whom, how and for which purposes, meaningful progress cannot be made, either in policy terms or commercial negotiations. New legal regulations establishing transparency in the use of copyright works for training and operating generative AI systems is an essential first step.
- Forget the Exception and Opt-out
A broad new exception to copyright law in favour of AI companies which binds authors and other creators unless they opt-out is unfair, unworkable and at odds with international copyright rules. The onus should not be on creatives to tell people not to use their work without permission. An opt-out mechanism requires building a complex, technical infrastructure which will never be sufficiently agile or accurate to offer genuine protection to rightsholders, particularly individual creators such as writers.
- An AI Copyright Hub
The UK is genuinely world-leading in the production of creative content and scientific research, strengths that we have harnessed and exploited over the years through effective licensing and distribution systems. By leading on the development of an AI Copyright Hub (an adaptation of a government proposal from 2015) which would combine licensed content offers with the emergent technical tools linking rightsholders with licensees, the UK could create a progressive, internationally recognised model, systemising the currently fragmented approach to providing legal access to copyright material for generative AI development.
Richard Combes, Deputy CEO, said: “This is a fork in the road moment. We can pursue the creation of a transparent, adaptable marketplace for generative AI rights, one which delivers the control and access the government wants, or head down a path of uncertainty and division, inviting the legal contest and rancour that has followed attempts elsewhere to reset copyright rules in favour of AI developers.”
You can read our response in full here.
