Data (Use and Access) Bill [HL]

Lord Black of Brentwood Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 28th January 2025 Lords Chamber

These amendments were urgent today, but the Government’s consultation has given permission to continue large-scale theft of property rights. The spectre of AI does nothing for growth if it gives away what we own so that we can rent from it what it makes. I beg to move.

[Lord Black of Brentwood (Con)]

My Lords, I strongly support Amendments 44A and 61 to 65 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, who is to be congratulated on raising this incredibly important and timely subject, her doughty leadership on these issues, and an absolutely first-class speech. I regret that I was unable to take part in Committee.

I will talk about the profound significance of these amendments for the media, although they are equally important across all the creative industries, which I know we will hear about. I declare my interest as deputy chairman of the Telegraph Media Group and note my other interests in the register.

The key point is that an effective, enforceable and comprehensive copyright regime is absolutely fundamental to the sustainability of a free, independent media. Without it, the media cannot survive. Publishers have to invest huge amounts of money in high-quality journalism, investigative reporting, world-class comment and content. That they can do so is because copyright laws protect this content, ensuring the commercial viability of publishers —print and broadcast—as well as the livelihoods of individual journalists and freelancers.

We talk a lot in this House about the threats to the free media resulting from digital, which smashed to pieces the business model that once sustained publishing and quality journalism. Publishers from across the spectrum have found innovative ways to adapt to that and produce new paths to commercial success to maintain their investment in independent investigation and reporting, which is the very lifeblood of a democracy. Parliament, with cross-party support, has assisted through the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act, which establishes a tough competition regime to control the untrammelled power of vast, unaccountable platforms. But just when the media has been successfully adapting to the new world, along comes a far graver threat—AI—and government proposals flying in the face of the DMCC Act to weaken, through a sweeping text and data-mining exception, the UK’s gold-standard copyright regime, which is the absolute bedrock of quality, independent, regulated media.

I know how strongly noble Lords opposite and from across the House value the fundamental role our free media plays in our democratic society, because without it, all of our freedom is in peril. The Bill and the connected government consultation will either help it or kill it; I am afraid it is as stark as that. Of course I welcome the Government’s apparent aim to provide transparency and facilitate licensing, but their preferred option of an exception—on which there has been no impact assessment, as the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, said—is fundamentally flawed and wholly impractical.

Instead, we need with these amendments to ensure three things happen to make investment in journalism possible through an effective legal regime protecting copyright, creativity and innovation. That is transparency, the power of control over how news content is used, and fair remuneration. Only that will drive the dynamic licensing market that is necessary to ensure both the media and AI sectors flourish and grow. These imaginative amendments will achieve that by expanding UK copyright law to cover any AI model linked to the UK, compelling, in a strikingly simple way, AI firms to provide information about how they scrape content and what they scrape, and ensuring we have the enforcement powers necessary to make big tech—which is so adept at arrogantly ignoring what it does not like and what this House says—take notice. That is why I will support these amendments, and I am proud to do so.

I must add that I am deeply disappointed that the long-standing commitment of my party to upholding the values of a free press and supporting the sustainability of the British media has not extended to formal support for these amendments. It is incredibly short-sighted.

If these amendments pass, as I hope they will, this legislation can complete a landmark trio of laws—with the Online Safety Act and the DMCC Act—to make the giant platforms regulated and accountable. Like others in this debate, I want to make it clear that I support the noble Baroness’s absolutely vital amendments not because I am anti-AI but because I am pro free independent media, pro the creativity which fuels it, and pro the commercial foundations that support it.

If these amendments are successful, we can create a situation where the tech and AI sectors can flourish alongside the creative industries, thereby powering economic growth between them. Because of the vital role the media plays in our democracy, I genuinely believe that this is one of the most crucial debates that we will have in this Parliament. I have this stark warning: without adequate transparency, control and reward, publishers will no longer be able to invest as they have in the creation of the original, high-quality investigative content on which our democracy and the accountability of those in power are based. Without that, our democracy will die in the dark at the hands of Silicon Valley, as we become dependent on the morass of fake news and social media clickbait. I strongly urge all noble Lords to support the amendments.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble, Lord Black, for daring to respond to the wonderful speech that opened the debate; I thought I might come in immediately afterwards, but I was terrified by it, so I decided that I would shelter on these Benches and gather my strength before I could begin to respond.

I feel that I have to speak because I am a member of the governing party, which is against these amendments. However, I have signed up to them because I have interests in the media—which I declare; I suppose I should also declare that I have a minor copyright, but that is very small compared with the ones we have already heard about—and because I feel very strongly that we will get ourselves into even more trouble unless action is taken quickly. I have a very clear view of the Government’s proposals, thanks to a meeting with my noble friend the Minister yesterday, where he went through, in detail, some of the issues and revealed some of the thinking behind them; I hope that he will come back to the points he made to me when he comes to respond.

There is no doubt that the use of a copyright work without the consent of the copyright owner in the United Kingdom is an infringement, unless it is “fair dealing” under UK copyright law. However, because of the developments in technology—the crawlers, scrapers and GAI that we have been hearing about—there is a new usage of a huge number of copyright works for the training of algorithms. That has raised questions about whether, and if so how, such usage has to be legislated for as “fair dealing”—if it is to be so—or in some other way, if there is indeed one.

It is right, therefore, for the Government to have required the IPO to carry out a consultation on copyright and AI, which we have been talking about. However, given the alarm and concern evident in the creative sector, we certainly regret the delay in bringing forward this consultation and we are very concerned about its limited scope. Looking at it from a long way away, it seems that this is as much a competition issue as it is a copyright issue. It seems to me and to many others, as we have heard, that the IPO, by including in the consultation document a proposed approach described as an “exception with rights reservation”, has made a very substantial mistake.

This may just be a straw-person device designed to generate more responses, but, if so, it was a bad misjudgement. Does it not make the whole consultation exercise completely wasteful and completely pointless to respond to? When my noble friend the Minister comes to respond, I hope that he, notwithstanding that proposed approach, will confirm that, as far as the Government are concerned, this is a genuine consultation and that all the possible options outlined by the IPO—and any other solutions brought forward during the consultation—will be properly considered on their merits and in the light of the responses to the consultation.

What the creative industries are telling us—they have been united and vehement about this issue, as has already been described, in a way that I have never seen before—is that they must have transparency about what material is being scraped, the right to opt in to the TDMs taking place and a proper licensing system with fair remuneration for the copyright material used. The question of whether the GAI developers should be allowed to use copyright content, with or without the permission of the copyright owner, is a nuanced one, as a decision either way will have very wide-ranging ramifications. However, as we have heard, this issue is already affecting the livelihood of our creative sector—the one that, also as we have heard, we desperately need if we are to support a sustainable creative economy and provide the unbiased information, quality education and British-based entertainment that we all value and want to see flourish.

We understand the need to ensure that the companies that want access to high-quality data and copyright material to train their AI models respect, and will be happy to abide by, any new copyright or competition regulations that may be required. However, the proposals we have heard about today—the ones that would come from the consultation, if we have to delay—will probably be very similar to the amendments before the House, which are modest and fair. We should surely not want to work with companies that will not abide by such simple requirements.

Data (Use and Access) Bill [HL]

Lord Black of Brentwood Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments and / or reasons
Monday 12th May 2025 Lords Chamber

Whatever noble Lords’ party allegiance, I ask them to make clear to the 2.4 million people who make up the creative industries and their dependants, to the would-be creators of the future, and to the citizens of the UK who enjoy and benefit from their creativity, that their property, their labour, is worthy of our protection—apart from anything else, it is not ours to give away.

[Lord Black of Brentwood (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as deputy chairman of the Telegraph Media Group and chairman of the Royal College of Music.

It is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron; I strongly support Motion 49A in her name. All who value the creative life of our country owe her an enormous debt of gratitude for her doughty campaigning, and I agree with everything that she said in thanking all those who have taken part.

At the heart of this debate there are—the Minister made that point—two complex policy issues: the rapid development and regulation of AI and the operation of copyright law. Both can seem a bit daunting to those not directly involved. AI is scary, copyright law is highly complex and many would be forgiven simply for wanting to steer clear. But not one of us can turn our back today with impunity on this issue. We all have a responsibility because, if we strip this debate back to its basics, there are three very simple principles at stake that affect all our lives and are central to everything that this House stands for.

The first is the defence of property. For centuries, since the copyright Act of 1709, when an individual has created something—a book, a film, some music—they have retained ownership of it and earned a living from its use. It is their property and the law protects them. That centuries-old right is under threat for the first time because the Government refuse properly to apply the law to artificial intelligence, allowing it simply to plunder someone else’s work and profit from it. They are putting AI beyond the scope of the law by failing to give creators the transparency they need to inform it.

At heart, this is dead simple. Unless this Bill is amended, it is the equivalent of saying to a homeowner that, once they have bought a house and filled it with their possessions, the Government want them to leave the front door wide open, invite anonymous passers-by to come in, take anything they want for free and allow them to go away and sell it for their own profit, while the homeowner has no protection at all in law. It is legalising theft. This amendment simply seeks to allow those who create content in an age of rapacious AI to put a lock on their door and protect their property by letting them know when theft is taking place and giving them a form of redress. If this House stands for anything, it must stand for the protection of property.

The second is the nurturing of human creativity. It was Beethoven—the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, will correct me if I have got this wrong—who once said that there is a “divine spark”, a creative genius, in all of us. Whether we paint a picture, take a photograph or write a piece of music, we all have something in us that allows us to express ourselves and enrich the lives of others in doing so. It is copyright that protects our ability to do that. That is why the creative life of the UK has always been so vibrant, so colourful, so entertaining and so powerful. It is why our creative industries flourish and play such a vital role in economic growth. If you take away copyright protection, you snuff out that divine spark and endanger the livelihoods of those who depend on their own creative ability for their living. If this House stands for anything, it must stand for nurturing creativity and the divine spark.

Finally, and most importantly, there is the defence of democracy itself. If it has been said once in this House, it has been said a thousand times: democracy depends on the existence of a free, independent press, empowering the electorate with reliable information and scrutinising those in power. That role is even more important in an age of disinformation and unverified, unregulated, AI-generated content, with editorial judgment and oversight overtaken by algorithms and the tyranny of recycled, distorted, circular information. But the provision of independent and verified regulated news will be among the very first victims of AI if this amendment is not passed and we do not act very soon.

I do not say this lightly; having spent almost my whole career in the media, I am choosing my words very carefully, but I have to give the House this warning. AI has the capacity utterly to destroy independent news organisations, because it feasts off millions of articles written by journalists without any attribution or payment, destroying the business model that makes the free press possible. Without action this day, news will die in the cold darkness of cyberspace, where no legal framework exists: the advertising which supports it taken by the platforms, its content stolen by AI. There will be only a husk left.

The answer is this amendment, which will turbocharge an embryonic licensing market to ensure fair payment for creators and access to high-quality information for AI models. If the AI developers are forced to declare whose content they are taking, they will know they will end up in the courts if they do not negotiate a licence. The term “existential threat” is bandied around too much, but this is not crying wolf. Unless we introduce transparency, control over content and fair remuneration within in a dynamic licensing market, the threat to free media is genuinely existential. As a consequence, the threat to democracy itself is also genuinely existential. If this House stands for anything, it must stand for democracy.

We have to act now. The Bill’s laissez-faire approach to copyright protection, in craven obeisance to the platforms, means that we will not get any action on transparency until well-nigh the end of this Parliament. For many publications, however, by that point, the end will already have come, and, once lost, there will be no way of recreating the plural, competitive media that has sustained parliamentary democracy for centuries. It is game over. That may sound alarmist, but it is absolutely what is at stake here. To any noble Lord considering voting against this amendment, I say this: it is already five minutes to midnight for our free press and our democracy. Unless we back this amendment today, history will damn this House with its most deadly words: “Too late”.

[Baroness Benjamin (LD)]

My noble Lords, friends and those of a creative disposition, lend me your ears. Even though I have come late to this Bill, I wonder what Shakespeare would have had to say about Al. Last night, I presented the special BAFTA award to ITV for commissioning the landmark drama “Mr Bates vs The Post Office”, which is British television at its best. I wondered whether AI would have had the intuitive instinct to create such an important drama, which brought about societal change. That is why I rise to strongly support my intrepid friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, on her Motion 49A and declare an interest as per the register.

As this Bill has shown, we stand at a fascinating—and perhaps unsettling—crossroads in the world of creativity. The rise of artificial intelligence is no longer a futuristic fantasy. It is a tangible force, reshaping the very fabric of our creative industry and potentially stealing livelihoods and, most of all, our children’s future. Do the Government really want that to be part of their legacy?

For centuries, the essence of acting or singing has been a unique connection between a human performer and an audience. We pour our emotions, experiences and understanding of the human condition into convincing characters, telling stories that emotionally connect. Now, however, AI is stepping on to our stage, offering digital doubles, synthesised voices and the potential of entirely AI-generated programmes, including animated children’s programmes.

The immediate impacts are already being felt. AI tools can now replicate an actor’s likeness and voice, raising concerns about the unauthorised use of identities, both living and deceased. The ability to create digital doubles or stunts—or even entire scenes—will reduce the demand for human actors. Some argue that AI will be a tool to enhance our craft, aiding in voice training, accent work or even music and scriptwriting; but the underlying anxiety about job displacement is real and valid.