Big-name British artists, including Paul McCartney, Kate Bush and Elton John, are among those who have urged Keir Starmer to protect the work of creatives ahead of an imminent UK-US tech deal during Donald Trump’s visit.
Trump will be accompanied by a delegation of US executives on the state visit this week, including leaders of Nvidia Corp and ChatGPT developer OpenAI, which has prompted industry figures to hit out at Labour’s failures to defend the rights of artists by blocking attempts to force AI firms to reveal what copyrighted material they have used in their systems, per The Guardian.
Sir Elton – who, back in May, signed a similar letter asking Starmer to back proposals that would protect copyrighted artistic works from AI infringement – was among the 70-some signatories.
He said government proposals to let AI companies train their systems on copyright-protected work without permission left the door “wide open for an artist’s life work to be stolen,” adding: “We will not accept this, and we will not let the government forget their election promises to support our creative industries.”
The letter went on to say copyright law was being flouted “en masse” by big tech companies in order to build AI models, and once again raised the government’s refusal to amend the recent Data (Use and Access) Act, which would have effectively forced AI firms to reveal exactly what material they had used in their systems.
The letter added that this decision “actively stood in the way” of creators exercising their human rights, and cited to the UN’s international covenant on economic, social and cultural rights (ICESCR) and the Berne convention for the protection of literary and artistic works and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) – with the latter enforceable in the UK through the Human Rights Act.
The letter points to a provision in the ECHR stating that “no one shall be deprived of his possessions except in the public interest”, adding that removing the amendments breached UK citizens’ rights, under the ICESCR, to “the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is author”.
“The government’s formal position has exhibited a shocking indifference to mass theft, and a complete unwillingness to enforce the existing law to uphold the human rights stipulated by the ICESCR, the Berne Convention and the ECHR,” the letter said.
A UK government spokesperson told The Guardian that concerns over copyright were being taken “seriously” and a report into the impact of potential changes is expected to be published by the end of March next year.
“No decisions have been taken, but our focus is on both supporting rights holders and creatives, while making sure AI models can be trained on high-quality material in the UK,” said the spokesperson.
It comes during a period of controversy for AI technology in the music industry, with a recent study sharing the stark warning that people working in music are likely to lose a quarter of their income to Artificial Intelligence over the next four years.
Deezer also reported that around 10,000 AI-generated tracks are submitted to the platform daily – making up around 10 per cent of all its music uploads, and it has also emerged that AI-generated songs are reportedly being uploaded to dead musicians’ profiles on Spotify.
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