CCIA hosted its latest AI roundtable in London last week, bringing together CCIA members, entrepreneurs, experts from tech and other sectors making exciting use of new AI tools, policymakers, academics and other experts to consider next steps for AI and copyright. The event came at an important milestone as the UK Government is launching working groups considering how to follow up on a copyright reform consultation from the end of last year. It was an important opportunity to take stock and consider priorities as that process gets underway.
Participants agreed that the UK has an exciting opportunity with AI. Developers here can play an important role in building new AI systems, but also deploying them to support British businesses, public services and creative industries. Ensuring that the process can include UK training and publicly-available UK data will mean AI is more responsive to the needs of British users.
Participants discussed how copyright reform to support AI training could be combined with meaningful steps to avoid AI model outputs infringing on legitimate copyrights. An ability for rights holders to “opt out” of their data being used for AI training would have significant costs, which some of the participants highlighted, while others felt that it could be a way to give rights holders more control.
There was general agreement that a mutually beneficial solution is possible, but equally that the UK would have to make a choice and match the flexibility and protection available in other major economies like the EU, Japan and the United States. As a new paper from Dr. Andrés Guadamuz, released alongside the workshop, argued: there is no sign that those text and data mining exceptions in the EU and Japan have had a negative impact on their creative industries. The paper also noted that tightening UK copyright law will not stop AI training on UK content; it will likely only push innovation elsewhere.
As the Government working groups get under way, CCIA will continue to work with the UK’s AI community to press the case for a regulatory settlement that will allow Britain to seize its AI opportunities.
