Wait goes on for clarity on copyright law in the AI age
Content creators and AI developers are at loggerheads as the UK government tries to plot the way forward, says Cerys Wyn Davies
There are no new indications as to what steps the UK government will take to update copyright law to account for the AI age – and content creators and AI developers are likely to have to wait until mid-March for meaningful signs of the direction of government policy.
A recently published progress report provides an insight into the polarised views that exist on the issue and the challenges the government faces in achieving reform that achieves a fair balance of respective interests.
Many content creators, such as publishers, authors and musicians, are concerned that AI developers are using their copyright works to train their AI models and inform the output those models produce.
They want greater transparency over when AI developers seek to use their content as well as more control over whether to enable access to it and, if so, to be remunerated in return. They argue that existing copyright protections in UK law are being ignored by AI developers and want the government to intervene.
AI developers, however, reject assertions that their activities are copyright infringing. They want the government to loosen, not tighten, restrictions on access to data and point to the potential of AI to deliver improved economic, social, health and environmental outcomes as the prize on offer for supporting AI development.
The government has until 18 March to prepare and publish an economic impact assessment in respect of potential AI-related copyright reform and a report regarding the options for reform and its proposals on various AI and copyright issues – including matters such as measures for controlling AI developers’ access to and use of copyrighted works, transparency regarding such use, licensing, and enforcement.
A government consultation on potential AI copyright reform expressed a preference for an option that would, if implemented, recalibrate the existing text and data mining exception in UK copyright law to facilitate the training of AI models using copyrighted material, but only if rights holders do not opt their content out from being used in that way.
According to the government’s new progress report, however, this option was favoured by just 3 per cent of the more than 11,500 respondents to its AI copyright consultation.
Instead, 88 per cent of respondents said they would prefer the government to pursue a different option under which UK copyright law would require AI developers to obtain a licence in all cases to use copyrighted content for the purpose of training their AI models – an option the government previously said would likely harm the UK’s global competitiveness in AI development.
The report revealed four working groups are looking at a number of areas, including tools and standards to support content creators in exercising control over when their works are used; what legal transparency duties could include; the strengths and weaknesses of the current licensing framework; and additional protections for the creative industries.
The government is trying to tread a very fine line to balance the respective interests of the creative industries and AI developers, putting the onus on reaching a form of consensus on issues that have to date been highly polarising, and finding new solutions to technical problems that might constrain how any new policy on AI and copyright in the UK is implemented in practice.
Cerys Wyn Davies, Partner, Pinsent Masons
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