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In 1989 we bought a small house within the shadow of Carcassonne's medieval city partitions. It was the start of my love affair with the Languedoc – the history, the mysterious secrets hidden within the landscape, the infinite blue sky, the sunshine over the mountains at dusk. It could be the inspiration for my first historical adventure novel, which was later translated into 38 languages and sold in greater than 40 countries. Global success is the explanation I could quit my job and turn into a full-time writer.
So imagine my dismay after I discovered that these 15 years of dreaming, researching, planning, writing, rewriting, editing, visiting libraries and archives, translating Occitan texts, trying to find original documents from the thirteenth century and becoming an authority in catharism apparently count for nothing. is just certainly one of several of my novels that were spared by the critics Meta's large language model. This happened without my consent, without compensation, without even a notice. This is theft.
I’m enthusiastic about artificial intelligence and its possibilities. Using technology to enhance, develop, experiment and innovate is a component of each artist's toolbox. We need time to create and possibly AI may give us some respiratory room to do the things we love. But the theft of mental property represents an attack on creativity and copyright and can undermine the UK's world-leading creative industries. It is time to unite and act.
This has been a busy month in Parliament for AI. On December 3, the Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society released the report “A Brave New World?” at a gathering of the All-Party Parliamentary Writers Group. This survey of around 13,500 authors' attitudes toward AI threw a hand grenade into the one-sided debate about illegal scraping and crawling of authors' works and the misunderstandings related to it.
On December 9, Baroness Beeban Kidron convened creators to debate three proposed amendments to the Data (Use and Access) Bill, currently before Parliament, that will make UK copyright law enforceable within the age of generative AI.
This got here ahead of presidency consultation on methods to increase trust between sectors to make sure AI developers provide rights holders with greater clarity about how their material is used. So far, so good. But when the scope of the consultation was announced, it became clear that it was an try to drastically weaken the UK's copyright laws within the name of “progress” by suggesting that authors and rights holders should distance themselves from the existence of their works would should log off. Used for AI training.
As the House of Lords debated the Kidron amendments this week, MPs were united of their disdain for the federal government's plans, with Kidron noting: “The government has sold the creative industries down the drain.”
AI corporations portray creators as opponents of change. We are usually not. Every artist I do know is already working with AI in a method or one other. However, there’s a distinction to be made between AI that may be utilized in good ways – for medical diagnostics, for instance – and the basics of AI models, where corporations essentially steal the work of creatives for their very own profit. We shouldn’t forget that AI corporations depend on developers to create their models. Without strong copyright law to make sure creators can earn a living, AI corporations will lack the high-quality material essential to their future growth.
The UK has one of the thriving, modern and profitable creative industries on the planet, with an annual turnover of around £108 billion. The publishing industry alone contributes £11 billion yearly and has the potential to grow by an extra £5.6 billion over the following decade. It supports 84,000 jobs and is a worldwide leader in publishing exports, with growth forecast to achieve 20 percent by 2033. In the film industry, 70 percent of the 20 most successful movies in 2023 were based on books.
One of the explanations for this global success is that we have now strong and fair copyright laws. Great Britain was the pioneer here. The Statute of Anne, passed in 1710, aimed to advertise learning and support the book trade, making a framework by which authors who authored their works retained full rights, making it illegal for publishers to publish works without Permission or payment to breed.
It is that this robust and fair system that the federal government will undermine if it pursues an opt-out – or “retention of rights” in the brand new parlance – reasonably than an opt-in model. Why should we writers tackle the burden of stopping AI corporations from stealing our work? If a producer desires to turn it right into a film, a radio show or a play, they arrive to us and we make a deal. Although the technology is recent and evolving, the principle is identical. AI is not any different. It's not nearly fairness or illegal actions, but about economic growth. If creatives should spend time tracking down AI corporations to maintain our work from being scrapped, we'll have less time to work. This will, in turn, weaken our world-leading creative industry and harm growth.
I fully support the Government in its determination to seize the long run and be a worldwide leader in AI innovation. Over 60 years ago, on the 1963 Labor Conference, Harold Wilson spoke of the “white heat of the technological revolution” and a “university of the skies”. This Labor government follows in those forward-thinking footsteps. However, weakening copyright will not be the technique to go. Putting the burden on authors and other creators to opt out will not be the technique to go. Without original work there’s nothing.
