Artificial Intelligence: Creative Content

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Thursday 15th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

As I made clear to the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, we recognise that transparency is a key element required to improve the situation for creators. We ran a 10-week consultation on the impact of AI on the copyright regime. It received over 11,500 responses, mainly from creators. Our genuine aim is to provide certainty for UK creative and AI sectors. I will not apologise for the Government making sure that we get this right and not wanting to use a Bill that is currently going through Parliament.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, on the value of creative content, the US Copyright Office, in its very recently published report, concludes that:

“The copying involved in AI training threatens significant potential harm to the market for or value of copyrighted works”.


In relation to an opt-out approach, it says that such an approach

“is inconsistent with the basic principle that consent is required for uses within the scope of their statutory rights”.

If the Minister will not listen to the noble Lord, Lord Black, the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and many in your Lordships’ House, will she at least listen to our US partners?

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

My Lords, I am listening; I just do not agree with the noble Lords on the points that they have made. We are looking to make sure that we get this regime right. We will look at all the responses to the very wide-ranging consultation that received, as I mentioned previously, over 11,500 responses, mainly from creators.