Brussels, BELGIUM – The European Parliament today adopted an own-initiative report on copyright and generative artificial intelligence (AI). While non-binding, the report calls for measures that could sharply restrict Europe’s access to cutting-edge technologies.
This risks generating fresh uncertainty, as EU rules already strike a careful balance. Indeed, the Copyright Directive’s text-and-data-mining (TDM) exception lets developers train their AI models on publicly available material unless rightsholders opt out – a right they actively exercise today.
The report, however, now suggests requiring prior authorisation or broad licensing regimes, which would create new complexity and legal uncertainty. This would impose a ‘compliance tax’ on EU companies across many sectors, but risks affecting startups most – unable to negotiate complex licences with major publishers, they would be priced out of the market.
The Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA Europe) urges EU institutions to preserve the existing balance. With the Copyright Directive and AI Act already in place, the priority should be effective implementation rather than new legislation.
The following can be attributed to CCIA Europe’s AI Policy Lead, Boniface de Champris:
“Today’s non-binding report sends the wrong signal to innovators, and risks holding back Europe’s digital competitiveness on the global stage. The EU already has strong, future-proof rules that carefully balance the interests of rightsholders with AI innovation.”
“The last thing the EU needs right now is more complexity. It just needs to enforce the rules it already has. Let the Copyright Directive and AI Act do their job.”
