Data (Use and Access) Bill [HL]

Earl of Clancarty Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 28th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freyberg (CB)]

My Lords, as one of the supporters of these amendments, I support the amendment so expertly moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron. I declare my interest as someone with a long-standing background in the visual arts and as an artist member of DACS, the Design and Artists Copyright Society.

I thought it would be helpful to highlight and focus on just one element of the noble Baroness’s speech, specifically the issue of transparency. Here, there is a theme developing throughout the House on this issue. One of the biggest obstacles to ensuring fair pay for creators is that AI companies have not been transparent about what works. They have been used for training AI models. Tech companies have rebuffed transparency measures because they say that this will reveal trade secrets. While I understand that business need, it cannot come at the expense of creators. There is a way in which to make transparency measures work for both business and creators, giving access to creator representatives about the use of their work on a confidential basis to facilitate copyright licensing.

This is, after all, what data rights have done for millions of people, giving them the agency to know when their data has been used. It is entirely reasonable and possible for transparency measures to be upheld and properly enforced. Therefore, considering the significance of this issue, I should be very grateful if the Minister will confirm that transparency measures proposed in the copyright and AI consultation will not be conditional on a reservation rights system.

[The Earl of Clancarty (CB)]

My Lords, I rise briefly in support of my noble friend Lady Kidron’s important amendments. I declare an interest as a visual artist.

I want to pick up on the language that Rachel Reeves used in conversation with Laura Kuenssberg in her Sunday programme, when she talked about getting the balance right. It needs to be emphasised that it is not a question of balance between the tech companies and the creative industries but a question about the use of data, and the consideration of the origin of that data should be central to a Bill about access to data. That is critical. It is perhaps ironic that at the heart of this there is a void, which is the lack of data about data, as my noble friend Lord Colville showed clearly in his speech. The creative industries themselves successfully use AI. As Paul McCartney pointed out in the same Laura Kuenssberg programme, in his case he did so by actively seeking and obtaining permission for the use of data, as everyone should. These amendments are wholly reasonable and do what the creative industries are asking for. If the Government do not accept them, I shall certainly vote for them.

[Baroness Harding of Winscombe (Con)]

My Lords, I also support these amendments so brilliantly introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron. As a just-finishing member of the Communication and Digital Committee, I, too, associate myself with everything that our departing chair has just said so ably.

I am a lover of the book Why Nations Fail, written by two Nobel laureates. It charts how countries succeed and fail in adopting technology. There are two important lessons in that book. The first is that one must not turn one’s back on the technology. As we consider this very difficult issue, it is important to say that those of us in favour of these amendments are not trying to be the German boatman sinking the first steamboat, the Ottoman Empire turning its back on the printing press or the hand knitters objecting to knitting machines in Elizabethan times. We embrace AI. It will transform society for the good. That is the first important point.

The second lesson that Why Nations Fail teaches us is that, even as one embraces technology, the rule of law, property rights and giving people certainty over what they create and own are one of the other essential ingredients to success in harnessing the benefits of technology. That is why this issue matters so much. I, too, rewrote my brief remarks overnight on the back of the DeepSeek launch yesterday. I was struck by the panic among those in Silicon Valley, who thought, “Oh, my God. Is it possible that the Chinese have stolen open AI’s IP in order to create a better product?” Gosh, has Silicon Valley for a moment begun to feel what creative copyright owners have been feeling for several years? Actually, the valley is learning that certainty of copyright is an important part of driving growth in an adoption of technology.

Another interesting thing happens when you ask DeepSeek what happened in Tiananmen Square in 1989. It will not tell you, so it is clear that these supposed black boxes can be quite specific about what they include and exclude. That gives me confidence, as a non-technologist, that if we give the technology companies the challenge of creating simple mechanisms for copyright owners, they will jolly well do it, because they can definitely do it when they want to exclude content from models today.