Intellectual Property: Artificial Intelligence

Liam Conlon Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd April 2025 Westminster Hall

[Mr Frith]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point and demonstrates both the economic might of these industries—the sheer size of their contribution—and the fact that this is Britain’s best industry, giving some of the best life experiences. I know how well my hon. Friend is thought of.

Creative industries must not be expected to forfeit their legal rights for uncertainty. There is no doubt that AI will unlock huge gains in our society. The story some tell is selective, though. We are told that only if we deregulate will we unlock the AI economic growth, that the UK must hurry up or fall behind and that regulation will only slow us down, but the urgency to get the deal done is theirs. It is no coincidence that this hurrying up has intensified as the first US judgment has found that AI training is not deemed fair use.

[Liam Conlon (Beckenham and Penge) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the creative industries have shown us that they are willing to engage and embrace AI? The Financial Times was the first UK publisher to sign a licensing agreement with OpenAI, and Shutterstock has just this month signed a research licence with Synthesia, a London-based AI start-up. Does my hon. Friend agree that we should seek to create a framework that facilitates more of these deals and ensures that small, independent creatives can access them, too?

[Mr Frith]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. It is fundamental to future coexistence that the licensing and legal peace of mind that the industry requires, and is seeking, is uppermost in any future position that the Government take.

Let us take a closer look. We know that behind the AI models being created and trained are massive datasets, which are not built on transparency and trust, but on the unpaid labour of creators. Our concern must be to grasp the progress that AI presents, but not by dismantling or destroying a sector already giving Britain such substantial economic, cultural and social capital, both here and around the world. We are the creative superpower and our cultural exports are world class. Our IP industries are high-value, high-skilled and globally admired. Creative industries are not seeking to change the rules of the game; all they want is their rights to be upheld—rights that underpin the very licensing and remuneration that the Government have assured us, in person, are fundamental to any settled position.

The problem, though, is not uncertainty in the law, it is the opacity in the technology. UK copyright law is clear: if someone uses someone else’s work without permission, that is infringement. Arguments that cite complexity in an age of AI ignore the capabilities of the very web crawling under way.