Campaign on AI and copyright proposals
‘We must protect the rights of our creatives and value the contributions they make both to the economy and society.’
A London Quaker met with his local MP this month over concerns about a new government proposal around Artificial Intelligence (AI) and copyright.
Stephen Cox, from North London Area Meeting, said that Bambos Charalambous, Labour MP for Southgate and Wood Green, had agreed to meet at his parliamentary offices on 6 February to discuss the topic. ‘I found him pre-warmed on the specific issues of copyright – in his case by people in music education,’ Stephen Cox said. ‘The government proposes that AI training (which is a breach of copyright, according to most people independent of AI companies) should be retrospectively made legal, and going forward we should have to opt out of our stuff being used.’
He said the MP was ‘sympathetic’. Bambos Charalambous later posted on social media: ‘Great to meet author and constituent [Stephen Cox] today to discuss the importance of copyright as AI technology is on the rise.
‘We must protect the rights of our creatives and value the contributions they make both to the economy and society.’
A campaign has also been launched by the All Good Bookshop in Turnpike Lane, north London, where Stephen Cox, author of Our Child of the Stars and Our Child of Two Worlds, is a member of its writing group. The bookshop is supporting a petition to be submitted to Catherine West, Labour MP for Hornsey and Wood Green.
Critics have said that a government consultation into the proposals is ‘fixed’ in favour of AI firms, over the creative industries, and will transfer wealth from one sector to the other. They also claim the proposals undermine the government’s push for economic growth when the creative industries bring £126 billion to the UK economy, giving away the work for free of the 2.4 million employed in them.
A government spokesperson said the consultation ‘remains open and is part of an ongoing conversation’.
