In December, the government issued a consultation paper relating to copyright and generative AI training, which has implications for directors as copyright holders.
Below, we’ve broken down everything you need to know about the consultation, our stance, how we’ve been representing directors, and how you can get involved.
What is the current AI/copyright debate all about?
As many of you will have seen already, just before Christmas the government issued a consultation paper raising really important issues about copyright and generative AI training. In a nutshell, generative AI programmes learn how to generate new content by digesting as much existing content as they can find by trawling the internet. It seems reasonably clear that this process involves the copying of works protected by copyright without permission of the copyright owner — although the AI companies tend not to admit that. There are lots of lawsuits ongoing between AI companies and copyright owners right now, although the majority of these are in the US with comparatively few in the UK. One of the challenges copyright owners face is that the AI companies have not disclosed what content they have used for training or where the training took place, making litigation difficult.
What is the UK Government proposing?
In the consultation paper, the government says it wants to strike a balance between the interests of AI companies (which it wants to encourage to operate and grow in the UK) and copyright owners. It seems to be strongly favouring an approach already adopted by the European Union which will create a new exception to current copyright law by permitting AI companies to copy works for the purposes of training generative AI models without getting permission from the copyright owner unless the copyright owner "opts out" from the exception. If the copyright owner opts out, the AI company should get a licence from the owner. In addition, the AI company will have to share details of the works it uses to train its software.
The government seems to want to encourage licensing solutions which will allow the AI companies to keep training models in the UK but also pay fair licence fees to copyright owners in return. Quite a few news publishers are already licensing AI companies but very few film and television companies have done so.
What is Directors UK’s view?
Like most of the UK creative sector, our view is that creating an exception to copyright law with an opt-out is wrong because (a) there is no justification to allow copying without permission in the first place and (b) the proposal puts the onus on the copyright owner to actively assert its rights or lose them. In addition, there is no mechanism for asserting those rights today, and creating such a mechanism seems likely to be extremely difficult. UK Copyright law already protects works against being copied and all that is needed is transparency from the AI companies about what works they have been using for training so that copyright owners can be remunerated for that use. Directors UK will be echoing these views in our response to the consultation paper.
The consultation also covers many other issues including whether works generated by AI should get copyright protection under UK law. Our general view is that a human author should be a pre-requisite for copyright protection.
What does it mean for directors?
As directors, you are one of the first owners of the copyright in any audio-visual work that you direct. However, as you all know, it has been very common practice for a long time for production companies to insist on acquiring the entire copyright interest of the director. In most cases, this will likely include the right to authorise the making of copies. Therefore it is likely that if the opt-out scheme is adopted, it could well be the producer exercising the opt-out and seeking to license the AI companies. This would also mean that if licensing of films and television programmes for AI training takes place, there will be no automatic entitlement for directors of that programming to share in that revenue stream.
As a consequence, Directors UK will also be lobbying for the introduction of a new remuneration right for directors in circumstances where the director’s copyright has been transferred to the producer and the producer has opted out of the new exception regime. It must be right that the director, as one of the original copyright owners, should have a share of any licence fees coming from the AI company.
What has Directors UK been doing on AI?
Directors UK has long been an active part of discussions on this topic with organisations that represent creators across the industry. We are a member of the Creative Rights in AI Coalition, which has brought together rights holders, AI businesses, and organisations from across the creative industries with a focus on promoting a dynamic licensing market with robust protections for copyright, control and transparency for content creators, and driving growth and innovation in the creative and tech sectors. Find out more about the coalition here.
We are also a member of the British Copyright Council and part of the Creators’ Rights Alliance and Creative UK, and are feeding into their responses to the government’s consultation alongside providing our own response.
We are monitoring the latest developments in generative AI and its potential impact on creators, including in the House of Lords where Baroness Kidron OBE — a member of Directors UK — recently proposed a package of important amendments supporting creators’ copyright to the Data (Use and Access) Bill, and saw them pass with cross-party support. Find out more. The bill is scheduled to be debated in the House of Commons on 12 February.
Is there anything I can do?
This is an important topic, and if you wish to express your own views to your local MP, the Creative Rights in AI Coalition has produced a template letter which you can send, or use as inspiration.
Responses to the consultation are due by 25 February.
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