Intellectual Property: Artificial Intelligence

Carolyn Harris Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd April 2025 Westminster Hall

[Mr James Frith (Bury North) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the impact of AI on intellectual property.

It is a pleasure to serve under you, Ms McVey. I am grateful to all colleagues who have joined us here today. None of us will wish to prevent the inevitable, exciting power of change. This is not about resisting that change, but about shaping it, determining what comes next, for what and for whom. The debate grows louder and louder, and more important by the day. Today, I hope that we can begin to mark a landing zone of shared positions.

Our creative industries, with their might and strength, remain deeply alarmed. Copyright is the foundation of their creations, our UK industry and livelihoods, across music, films, books, news, investigations, coding, games, paintings and much more. The Government have made strong commitments to our creative industries, but their upcoming industrial strategy for growth will fall well short of the priority placed on those industries if it does not ensure legal peace of mind and action on artificial intelligence for those creating some of life’s greatest experiences.

The Government and the Minister have said continually that they want creatives to be better paid and better looked after, with licensing in the AI age to come. Given the agreement on the need for licensing and remuneration, why do the loudest AI tech companies expect to train their machines on human-created content for nothing? The Minister has referred to learning the lessons of the Napster age. I ask him: does he agree that it was the assertion of copyright that ensured we live with Spotify, for example, and not a music industry cannibalised by piracy?

Artificial intelligence is reshaping life as we know it. Its extraordinary potential must be built on integrity. Ignoring rights, abandoning trusted status or undermining commercial principles make for bad policy and worse law.

[Carolyn Harris (Neath and Swansea East) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. Is he aware of the Society of Authors’ petition, which has 50,000 signatures so far, calling for action following Meta’s use of 7.5 million pirated books from the illegal LibGen database to train its Llama 3 AI? That is a blatant infringement of the authors’ copyright.

[Mr Frith]

My hon. Friend makes a precise and excellent point. Seemingly by the day, we learn of whole sections of our creative industries having their work ripped off. I will come on to what we need to do.

We need an assertion of first principles: economic fairness and an honest day’s pay for an honest day’s work—the cost of doing business and paying one’s way. Our mission for our creative industries cannot mean creative industry submission. The opportunity plan will not work if our creative industries are the opportunity cost. As Labour, we back the working people who make our creative industries so powerful.