Creative Rights in AI Coalition reacts to AI Opportunities Action Plan

The newly-formed Creative Rights in AI Coalition has published its response to the government’s new AI Opportunities Action Plan, released yesterday by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. In a statement published on its website, the coalition warns against the plan’s proposal to ‘blindly imitate’ the EU’s approach to the technology.

The coalition raised concerns following the publication of the Action Plan, in which the government sets out how it aims to transform the nation into a global leader in artificial intelligence (AI). The plan makes 30 recommendations on topics including AI safety, the use of AI in the public and private sector, the ‘unlocking’ of public datasets for the technology to learn from, the ‘scaling up’ of AI use and changes to the rules around intellectual property (IP).

In the statement, released yesterday, the Creative Rights in AI Coalition said: ‘Following the Prime Minister’s broad commitment to take forward the Plan’s recommendations, we call on the government to provide assurances that all options in the Copyright and AI Consultation – including enforcing the existing copyright regime with transparency provisions – remain on the table. 

‘It is deeply concerning to see the EU approach looked to as a regime that the UK should mirror. The EU is still working out how to implement its EU AI Act and there are persistent questions over the workability of their opt-out regime. This serves as a real-time warning for the government about imitating regimes that have shown no signs of being effective. The UK should learn from the EU regime’s shortcomings, not blindly imitate it.

The action plan recommends that rules around text and data mining in the UK regime should be reformed in line with the EU as 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’. It recommends adopting an approach in line with the EU, which supports ‘AI innovation while also enabling rights holders to have control over the use of content they produce.’

However, in its statement the Creative Rights in AI Coalition responds: ‘There is no ‘uncertainty’ in the UK text and data mining regime: it is clear that UK copyright law does not allow text and data mining for commercial purposes without a licence. The only uncertainty is around who has been using the UK’s creative crown jewels as training material without permission and how they got hold of it, making transparency provisions vital.’