Data (Use and Access) Bill [HL]

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 28th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Dundee (Con)]

I too support this group of amendments proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and others.

It surely goes without saying that our United Kingdom copyright law has to counter the increasing theft of intellectual property by artificial intelligence companies.

As here advocated, we should provide transparency criteria that would allow copyright holders to identify when and from where their work has been taken. I am sure that the Minister agrees with that aim and is well aware of the strong human rights back-up support available to us from the 46 states affiliation of the Council of Europe, of which the United Kingdom remains a prominent member. I am a recent chairman of its education committee.

As many of your Lordships know, first and foremost, Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights protects the right to privacy, including of personal data. Article 1 of its initial protocol protects property rights, including intellectual property rights and copyright.

Secondly, Article 5 of the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime prohibits system interference by, for example, the transmission of computer data; while its Article 10 stipulates:

“Offences related to infringements of copyright and related rights”.


Thirdly, Article 11 of the 2024 Council of Europe Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law safe- guards privacy and personal data.

Regarding copyright protection in recent centuries, we can be justly proud of our own United Kingdom record, beginning, as has already been said, with the Statute of Anne 1710, which granted legal protection to publishers of books.

In the interests of those both here and abroad, we must uphold the high standards of that tradition. The United Kingdom should guide this good practice. Adopting these amendments is a clear example of so doing.

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as a composer and a copyright holder. I salute the speech of my noble friend Lady Kidron for its strength and accuracy. I too feel that there should be an impact assessment on such important matters.

If noble Lords will spare me one minute, it might be worth mentioning a little bit of background. The record industry more or less ceased to exist when the internet and streaming came along. Of course, they brought enormous advantages, as I am sure AI will, but there was a huge cost. One reason why many great big pop groups have gone on tour in the last few years is that they are not earning money from records. Although there is an interest for the public to gain and disseminate more information, there is a cost for the basic product. Those records brought in money that paid for performers to be employed in studios to make new records. It is a vicious circle: once you stop that income coming in, you stop creativity in its tracks.

We heard Sir Paul McCartney mentioned, and in one sense I am representing the more contemporary classical side. But I too have worked on the pop side, and I can I tell you that a record that we made for medics in Ukraine, with the help of no lesser figures than Neil Tennant and David Gilmour, has had 400,000 downloads so far, yet will produce only about £200 to go to Ukraine. That gives you some idea of how the shift in finance has changed in respect of what records bring in. Of course we cannot go backwards—this is progress—but we do have to be careful. We should think about the example that that sets.

As I said, Paul McCartney was mentioned and, over the weekend, Sir Elton John summed up the feelings of many composers. I am sure he would not mind my representing his words to you here. He said:

“Without thorough and robust copyright protection that allows artists to earn hard-fought earnings from their music, the UK’s future place on the world stage as a leader in arts and popular culture is under serious jeopardy. It is the absolute bedrock of artistic prosperity, and the country’s future success in the creative industries depends upon it”.


I think those words would be reiterated by every composer and creator in this country.

I will make one final point. In some ways, this is not a party-political issue but a cross-party one. It is our creativity that is at stake here. I have spoken in the past about music: the problems with touring and all the things that have hemmed in creativity. We have heard about the £126 billion that the creative industries bring in. There is support on both sides of the House. The Front Bench of the Conservative Party always used to say to me, “We salute the creative industries. We admire what they do and what they bring in to the economy”. The new Front Bench is saying much the same.

But listen to Elton John and listen to Paul McCartney and, if you value the creative industries as much as you say you do, for God’s sake protect their copyright.

[Baroness Freeman of Steventon (CB)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to support these important clauses. I declare my interests as I hold copyright as a filmmaker and writer.

Copyright and IP exist to assert ownership over creative works and protect the interests of creators. This is fundamental to supporting people whose job it is to have ideas, be creative and innovate in a range of different ways. Undermining this and allowing major breaches of that protection risks undermining the whole basis of innovation and creativity within a society, and that cannot be done lightly.

Creators of generative AI models claim that they “need” more and more materials to train their models on, including materials that are the creative works of others—just as, until last week, they had claimed that they needed more and more of the latest chips. We should ask ourselves very seriously why they need these copyright-protected works. What use-cases are there for models that have been trained on copyrighted works that would not be possible with models trained on public-domain materials and works for which the rights have been properly obtained?