Matt Rogerson

Several misleading claims by @peterkyle on The Rest Is Politics today to justify his proposed gutting of UK copyright law. 1. “All of the data has already been scraped and used by AI companies because not one of them is domiciled in the UK... so unless you have international copyright attached to your work which is respected in California, then your data has already been subsumed into the AI system” While it's true that many of the big AI companies are based in the US, many people think scraping copyrighted work for commercial gen AI training is illegal under US law, which is why there are 30+ lawsuits in the US on the topic. None are resolved yet. What's more, British creators *do* have 'international copyright', because 180+ countries have signed international agreements on this (including the UK & US), such as the Berne Convention. 2. “The copyright laws are 300 years old” The *first* copyright laws are 300 years old (the 'Statute of Anne'), but they have been updated many times since then, including with the addition of international laws. This is like saying "the murder laws are hundreds of years old, so they're clearly not fit for purpose". 3. “When it comes to China, they have no regard for any copyright anywhere in the world” They do. 4. “What I’m being asked to do is choose between [AI and the creative industries]” He is not. The creative industries simply say AI companies should be required to pay for their training data, just as they pay for engineers and GPUs. There is no indication that only one 'side' can win here. Super disappointing to see the debate framed this way by the person in charge of the UK's consultation on AI & copyright. It's hardly surprising the UK's creators are so angry with the government on this. Suggest giving it a listen: open.spotify.com/episode/0fN… (Starts at ~57 mins)

A couple of misleading things in this policy paper from the Tony Blair Institute: 1. They suggest the US doesn’t have strict copyright laws. But US copyright laws are strong, and are pretty fair to creators - the ‘fair use’ exception is nuanced, and many people (myself included) don’t believe for a moment that it permits all commercial gen AI training (hence the many US lawsuits). 2. They claim there are better ways to protect artists than strong copyright laws. This is not what artists say. These are becoming mantras of the school of thought that wants to weaken copyright law to favour AI companies. But repeating them doesn’t make them true. In general, I think it is odd for institutes with strong links to tech companies and zero links to artists to tell artists what they do or don’t need from copyright law. They would do better to listen to what artists are actually saying.