UK arts and media reject plan to let AI firms use copyrighted material

In a joint statement, bodies representing thousands of creatives dismissed the proposal made by ministers on Tuesday that would allow companies such as Open AI, Google and Meta to train their AI systems on published works unless their owners actively opt out. The coalition includes the British Phonographic Industry, the Independent Society of Musicians, the Motion Picture Association and the Society of Authors as well as Mumsnet, the Guardian, Financial Times, Telegraph, Getty Images, the Daily Mail Group and Newsquest. Their intervention comes a day after the technology and culture minister Chris Bryant told parliament the proposed system, subject to a 10-week consultation, would "improve access to content by AI developers, whilst allowing rights holders to control how their content is used for AI training". The Conservative chair of the Commons culture, media and sport select committee, Caroline Dinenage, alleged the government had "fully drunk the Kool-Aid on AI". But Bryant told MPs: "If we were to adopt a too tight a regime based on proactive, explicit permission, the danger is that international developers would continue to train their models using UK content accessed overseas, but may not be able to deploy them in the UK … this could significantly disadvantage sectors across our economy, including the creative industries, and sweep the rug from underneath British AI developers."