Creatives reject plan to ease copyright law for training AI systems

Writers, musicians, photographers, film producers and news organisations have rejected the government's plan to create a copyright exemption to help artificial intelligence companies train their algorithms.

- Robert Booth

In a joint statement, bodies representing thousands of creatives yesterday dismissed a proposal that would allow companies such as OpenAI, Google and Meta to train their AI systems on published works unless their owners actively opt out.

The Creative Rights in AI Coalition (Crac) said existing copyright laws must be respected and enforced rather than degraded. It spoke out a day after the technology and culture minister, Chris Bryant, told MPs the proposed new system, subject to a 10-week consultation, would "improve access to content by AI developers, while allowing rights holders to control how their content is used for AI training".