The Rt Hon Lisa Nandy MP - Secretary Of State For Culture, Media And Sport
cc The Rt Hon Peter Kyle MP - Secretary Of State For Science, Innovation And Technology
Dear Secretary Of State,
I am concerned about recent comments that “new law may be needed to end Al copyright dispute”.
In the last Parliament, the Culture Media Sport Committee, which I chair, looked into this in some depth.
Our 2023 report ‘Connected Tech: Al And Creative Technology' came in the aftermath of a disastrous policy proposal from government for a blanket copyright exemption that would have allowed artificial intelligence (Al) developers to scrape creative works from the internet to train their systems without permission and without paying the human creators whose work Al seeks to emulate and compete with.
I have deep concerns that the new government is now seeking to resurrect this flawed notion of a ‘TDM exception’ which would remove any motivation tech companies would otherwise have to work with the creative industries to devise commercial models that safeguard the incentives and reward for human creativity in the Al era.
The only thing government actually needs to do in this area is oblige tech companies to be transparent about the creative work they are using to train their systems so that the two 'sides' (creative and tech) can get around the table and discuss commercial models.
While embracing the opportunities of Al we must be confident that we are not undermining our cultural and creative industries, which are so fundamental to the success of our national economy and our soft power across the world.
Yours sincerely,
Caroline Dinenage