Artificial Intelligence: Intellectual Property Rights

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 1st February 2023 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) for setting the scene so well, and the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) for contributing so well. When I listen to them, I am very aware that their knowledge of this subject is much greater than mine. However, I wanted, as I always do, to try to give a Northern Ireland perspective on it, because of its importance to creative workers and the creative sector.

The lockdowns were incredibly hard for so many businesses, but the creative arts were the forgotten business. I am pleased and proud to have been a member of Ards Borough Council for some 26 years prior to coming here. We had a massive focus on the creative arts. We promoted them greatly and got much out of them, as did our communities. During the covid crisis, for some three years, our musicians, actors, playwrights and theatre workers were unable to go to work, and the only way of keeping things going was to put those things online for people to enjoy and get a taster of.

Prior to the lockdowns, it was estimated that the creative industries—which are not quite the same as, but strongly overlap, the culture and heritage sectors—made up around 5% of businesses in Northern Ireland, employed around 25,000 people and accounted for 2.7% of Northern Ireland’s total gross value added, contributing some £1,088 million. That is no longer the case, as the lockdowns have decimated the sector. The hon. Member for Richmond Park put forward the case for the sector and the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe reiterated its importance, as will others who speak. I very much look forward to hearing what the Minister will say.

Thankfully, the lockdowns have ended, yet the threat to the creative industry has not lessened. Indeed, the proposals have escalated the threat. As the hon. Member for Richmond Park has put it so well:

“These proposals would be damaging to creative workers, such as in the music and publishing industries, as AI companies would be able to use their works without permission or payment. This would lead to a huge transfer of value from the creative industries to AI companies and also potentially damage the competitiveness of our world-leading creative industries”

That is the thrust of the issue. I am sure that the Minister will, as always, give an excellent response; perhaps he can solve the concerns and worries that the hon. Member for Richmond Park and others have. I look forward to that. I am given to understand that the Government and the Minister are taking this matter seriously. I know that there was a ministerial response to a question from the hon. Member for Richmond Park in December last year, yet it is right and proper for the importance of the issue to be underlined once more in Westminster Hall today.

For any computer system to be able to shred through data and text and circumnavigate the proper methodology is tantamount—I will use a Northern Ireland example, and we all know the product—to allowing someone to walk into the Tayto factory and steal the ingredients for the world’s best crisps, which of course Taytos are, and then say, “Well, they shouldn’t have put the ingredients on the outside of the packet!” I am being a wee bit facetious, but I am trying to illustrate the point in a way that all can relate to. The information is there, yet for someone to be able to walk in and take the specific ingredients without paying is not acceptable, and never can be.

I will conclude, because I am conscious that the right hon. Member for Warley (John Spellar) wants to speak. I am on record as being supportive of our creative industry, and this protection must be in place. I know that the Minister has been listening carefully; he always responds to the questions that we pose, and I am pleased to see him in his place. I know that he will ensure that the Government enhance protection for the only source of income that many creative workers have. A world without art is a world without light, and the Government must ensure that the light continues to shine brightly from the shores of this great United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland—always better together.