Pact, which represents the interests of the U.K. production community, has expressed its concerns over the country’s recently unveiled AI Opportunities Action Plan.
Matt Clifford, the Government AI Opportunities Adviser, has proposed an AI Opportunities Plan to grow the sector in the U.K. It includes establishing a copyright-cleared British media asset training data set that can be licensed internationally. “This is a worrying sign for the creative industries, and we are concerned that control of copyright will become weakened in any future regime,” Pact explained.
Pact, which is part of the Creative Rights in AI Coalition campaign group, is asking the government for assurances about copyright protections. It is also concerned that the U.K. is looking to the EU for guidance. “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,” the group said. “This serves as a real-time warning for the government about imitating regimes that have shown no signs of being effective. The U.K. should learn from the EU regime’s shortcomings, not blindly imitate it.”
The organization’s response continued: “There is no ‘uncertainty’ in the U.K. text and data mining regime: It is clear that U.K. copyright law does not allow text and data mining for commercial purposes without a license. The only uncertainty is around who has been using the U.K.’s creative crown jewels as training material without permission and how they got hold of it, making transparency provisions vital.”
