Generative AI: Intellectual Property Rights Debate

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Department: Department for Business and Trade

Generative AI: Intellectual Property Rights

Baroness Stowell of Beeston Excerpts
Monday 11th November 2024

(2 days, 8 hours ago)

Lords Chamber
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Lord Kennedy of Southwark Portrait Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)
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My Lords, shall we hear from the former Leader of the House next? Then we will hear from the Cross Benches.

Baroness Stowell of Beeston Portrait Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)
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I am very grateful to the noble Lord. Copyright clearly affects a lot of different sectors, but given the value of real-time news to the AI platforms, particularly in the production of services and products that they offer to consumers, what steps are the Government taking to ensure that there is a mutually beneficial deal between the platforms and news organisations, so that we can safeguard the content that will be so important to the continuing advancement of this technology?

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Portrait Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
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The noble Baroness will know that there was an attempt to come to a voluntary agreement on this under the previous Government that would have been a way forward for both sectors. Unfortunately, that voluntary agreement did not work out, so the ball has bounced back into our court. The noble Baroness is absolutely right about journalism: if we do not have a vibrant journalistic bedrock for this society, we do not really have a democratic society; we need to know what is going on in the UK and the world. The noble Baroness is right that we need to protect journalists: we need to ensure that their work is rewarded and paid in the right way. We are working on this. I am sorry that I am beginning to sound a bit like a stuck record, but I assure noble Lords that we are working at pace to try to resolve these issues.