30s Summary

The UK government has initiated talks on allowing AI models to learn from copyrighted materials, due to unclear application of copyright laws to AI, slowing progress in both areas. Four solutions are proposed, including allowing AI companies to use copyrighted material without creator’s permission, and requiring specific permissions. This proposal has received mixed reactions from the creative industry, with concerns it could be detrimental to creators’ rights. The government consultation is open for opinions until Feb 25, 2025.

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The UK government has kicked off discussions about whether AI models should be allowed to learn from copyrighted materials. AI and creative folks have till Feb 25, 2025, to share their thoughts on this issue. Apparently, there’s uncertainty on how copyright laws apply to AI, and it’s slowing down the progress in both fields.

Peter Kyle, the guy in charge of science, innovation, and technology in the UK, reckons it’s pretty clear that the current copyright rules and AI just don’t jive well together. He feels they can’t compete globally under this framework. Also, it seems AI companies have caught flak for supposedly swiping intellectual property to train their AI models.

The UK government has come up with four potential solutions to this issue. One of these suggests that AI companies could use copyrighted material without needing the creator’s permission, and they could then use it for any purpose, with no to few restrictions in place.

The other option says companies can use copyrighted material to train AI models unless the creators say ‘no thanks’. There’s also a suggestion to tighten the copyright laws so companies would need specific permission to use the work for AI training.

Another idea is to keep the laws as is, but the folks backing this discussion agree that wouldn’t really clear up the confusion for copyright holders and AI developers.

However, some creatives aren’t too happy with all of this. For instance, Ed Newton-Rex, a British composer and CEO of an AI certification nonprofit, Fairly Trained, believes that these changes will do more harm than good for creators. He thinks it’s misleading to make it legal to use copyrighted work without a license, when it’s illegal now.

Meanwhile, Owen Meredith, the leader of the News Media Association, thinks the government consultation doesn’t tackle the real issue: the lack of transparency and enforcement requirements to keep creatives’ rights safe. He’s worried that if the laws change, then AI companies will end up dodging their responsibilities, and negatively impacting the field.