AI consultation ‘generationally important moment for the creative industries’
Publishers Association CEO, Dan Conway’s, statement on the government’s Copyright and Artificial Intelligence consultation:
“We welcome this consultation and look forward to representing publishing’s views in the strongest possible terms in the coming weeks. This is a generationally important moment for the creative industries and a real opportunity for the government to get the fundamental legal underpinnings right to support AI innovation in a way that works for the economy and society, based on trustworthy, ethical, and licensed content.
“AI is already proving transformative and has incredible potential to improve the way we conduct research, learn, and interact with content of all kinds. The way to get that right is to ensure that the content ecosystem, including publishers, is properly commercially incentivised to invest in high-value content and that rightsholders can retain their fundamental control of how and when a work is used.
“We see the Government’s preferred package of measures outlined in this consultation as a genuine best effort by Ministers at a compromise position between tech and the creative industries. We intend to engage fully and constructively with a view to publishing being part of an economy-wide policy solution. We do want to raise some concerns immediately, however, in that the measures being proposed are as yet entirely untested and unevidenced. There has been no objective case made for a new copyright exception, nor has a water-tight rights-reservation process been outlined anywhere around the globe. We need to fix the current situation, but that solution needs time and full scrutiny and a great deal is at stake.
“This may be a consultation about a seemingly technical bit of copyright law, but its implications will be felt across society and the economy for many years to come.”