UK’s plan to make copyright law more AI-friendly raises concerns

The UK’s ambitious new plan to make the country a major player in AI is being lauded by many tech and business leaders, but one aspect of the plan is raising concerns among some copyright owners.

Among the many initiatives in a 50-point AI Opportunities Action Plan presented to Parliament on Monday (January 13) is a commitment to reforming the UK’s text and data mining regime to be “at least as competitive” as the European Union.

“The current uncertainty around intellectual property (IP) is hindering innovation and undermining our broader ambitions for AI, as well as the growth of our creative industries,” the plan states.

“This has gone on too long and needs to be urgently resolved. The EU has moved forward with an approach that is designed to support AI innovation while also enabling rights holders to have control over the use of content they produce. The UK is falling behind.”

That has drawn criticism from some observers, who fear that AI-friendly copyright reforms could undermine the value of intellectual property.

“The recommendation to reform copyright law to favor AI companies is terrible news for the creative industries,” said Ed Newton-Rex, founder and CEO of Fairly Trained, in a post on LinkedIn.

“The recommendation to reform copyright law to favor AI companies is terrible news for the creative industries.”

Ed Newton-Rex, Fairly Trained

Fairly Trained is a non-profit that certifies AI models that have been trained ethically (i.e., without the unauthorized use of copyrighted content).

“We could get all the benefits of the Action Plan, and be a leader in AI, without upending copyright law,” added Newton-Rex, who in 2023 resigned as VP of Audio at Stability AI over the company’s insistence that using copyrighted materials without permission to train AI amounts to “fair use” under US copyright law.

Dan Conway, CEO of the Publishers Association, which represents book and periodical publishers, warned that this reform could lead to “a US tech-led heist of UK copyrighted works.”

In a LinkedIn post on Monday, Conway noted Parliament is currently running a consultation on AI and copyright, and said the Publishers Association “will be seeking assurances from Ministers that all options – including enforcing the existing gold standard copyright regime with transparency provisions – remain under full consideration and proper scrutiny.”

At this point, the details of how the UK plans to reform its copyright laws are unknown, but the reference to the European Union offers some guidance.

The EU’s AI Act, which Brussels has promoted as the world’s first comprehensive law governing artificial intelligence, creates an “opt-out” regime for AI data mining. AI developers can scrape the internet for copyrighted materials to train their models, unless a copyright holder expressly states that they object.

“The UK can achieve public service reform and seize all the growth opportunities associated with AI without facilitating a US tech-led heist of UK copyrighted works.”

Dan Conway, Publishers Association

That model has irritated many music rights holders, who are pushing for an “opt-in” model, under which AI developers can’t use copyrighted content to train AI unless they get permission from rights holders. They argue that the opt-out model unfairly puts the onus on copyright owners to enforce their rights.

Nonetheless, some music majors took advantage of the EU law to clarify that they don’t consent to their copyrighted works being used for AI without prior authorization.

In May of last year, Sony Music Group sent a letter to 700 AI developers and music streaming services declaring it’s opting out of having its materials used to train AI. A month later, Warner Music Group sent a letter to tech companies notifying them they need permission to use its content.

Another point in the proposed AI plan aims to create a “copyright-cleared” library of media content for AI developers. According to the Action Plan, the so-called “British media asset training data set” would potentially be sourced from institutions such as the National Archives, the Natural History Museum, the British Library, and the BBC.

The UK’s AI plan comes amid growing competition among nations for a key role in the development of artificial intelligence, and ongoing disputes between rights holders and tech companies over the use of copyrighted works to train AI models.

In the US, copyright owners have filed numerous lawsuits against AI developers, alleging that the tech companies used copyrighted materials without permission to train their AI.

Among the most prominent of these are two lawsuits filed by divisions of Sony Music Group, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group against Suno and Udio, generative AI services that enable users to create entire songs from text prompts quickly.

The music majors allege Suno and Udio trained their models on their works, pointing to similarities between existing copyrighted songs and content created by the AI music-making platforms.

For their part, Suno and Udio have all but admitted that they likely used copyrighted material, but argue that this falls under “fair use.”

AI firm Anthropic is using a similar argument to defend itself against a lawsuit by UMG, Concord, and ABKCO alleging that Anthropic’s Claude chatbot ripped off copyrighted lyrics.

The UK’s AI Action Plan focuses on the potential economic benefits of developing AI and the potential efficiencies that AI can bring to government services.

Citing data from the IMF, the UK government estimates that if AI were fully developed, it would add GBP £47 billion (USD $57.1 billion) to the US economy annually within 10 years.

The plan comes with a commitment from several tech companies to invest a combined £14 billion ($17 billion) into developing AI in the UK, creating some 13,250 jobs in the process.

It also comes with a plan to create new “AI Growth Zones” where proposals to develop AI infrastructure will be fast-tracked. The first of these zones will be in Culham, Oxfordshire, home to the UK’s Atomic Energy Authority.

“Artificial Intelligence will drive incredible change in our country. From teachers personalizing lessons, to supporting small businesses with their record-keeping, to speeding up planning applications, it has the potential to transform the lives of working people,” Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said in a statement.

“But the AI industry needs a government that is on their side, one that won’t sit back and let opportunities slip through its fingers. And in a world of fierce competition, we cannot stand by. We must move fast and take action to win the global race.”Music Business Worldwide