Unlock Editor’s Digest Lock for Free
During the second weekend in May, Donald Trump fired himself as head of the US Copyright Office. Last Friday, the office released “Copyright and Artificial Intelligence Part 3: Generation AI Training.” For the “High Tech Brothers,” who spent so much to bring Trump to power, the report was a declaration of war. It raises questions about the feasible feasibility of “fair use” defenses, which open AI, meta, and other tech companies rely on “scrape” online data when training models.
Copyright protection is just one of many issues raised by advances in AI. After government consultations, it is being heavily debated between the British Parliament, particularly the government and the Senate that controls the House.
In the words of Baroness Beeban Kidron, who is leading the copyright holder accusations, “The preferred option for the government is to give property rights to those who have won them with the promise of growth, growth and growth. Unfortunately, the government cannot say who that growth will accrue or how much it will be. Creative Industry.”
The fundamental principles here are hardly controversial. We have agreed that as a society, we should protect our intellectual property. It is right that people should benefit from their labor. Therefore, it is correct that businesses developing and publishing books, music, films, etc. will benefit from their work. Moreover, it is not only correct, but also economically beneficial. It creates economic value. If a company wants to benefit from the creativity of others, they should pay them. That’s why civilized countries recognize copyright.
At the same time, intellectual property in general and copyright in particular raises complex issues. One such issue is the problem with the proper duration of this property. In the UK, books, music and films are protected for 70 years after the creator’s death. This is optional. But that’s definitely the law. Another issue is the issue of enforcement. As Kidron points out, creators have the right to know that their property is being “shaved away.” Copyright theft is currently anonymous and therefore the owner cannot protect its rights. So, one of the major issues is transparency.
The priority is to say it is open-minded. But it doesn’t reject the “Strip Mine Anything You Want” option. One reason may be that the UK owns high-tech companies, and by imposing transparency, the US government, and already questionable allies, should not be annoyed by the US government. Another may be the belief that economic benefits outweigh the damage to your creative industry because they are friendly to the AI industry. Still others may suspect that it is impossible to demand a job of transparency in any case.
These are not unreasonable judgments. However, there are important offset considerations. First, the government itself estimates that “the creative industry created a total value added to the economy (5% of GDP), employing 2.4 million people in 2022.” At the very least, whether the value added in the AI industry will be on par with the size of this country is an open question. Another is that the creative industry represents many of the best things the UK and actually humanity does. The idea of passing that output for free is abominable.
We have also gone far beyond what we can offer the benefit of doubt to this industry. Its motto is to “movement quickly and break things.” Well, it certainly has, in it, broken the mental health of young people, and, as I personally have experienced, control the spread of financial fraud through my own “deep”;
Interestingly, for most of the 19th century, the United States had no recognition of international copyright in its domestic law. Anthony Trolope himself complained violently about theft of copyright to his book. “There are bold claims being made,” he wrote. “They want to make the goods of other people appropriate, and in this case they can do so with immunity, they will. But as far as I can judge, I come not from people, but from books selling Leviathan, and from politicians who can love their interests,” Leviathan is different. But the motivation is the same.
As Kidron argues, there is an opportunity for good relations between the tech giant and the creative industry, but I agree, “this forced marriage is not the case in slave language.”
Martin.wolf@ft.com
Follow Mastin Wolf on Mast and more x
