Copyright and Artificial Intelligence

Debate between Nusrat Ghani and Chris Bryant

Wednesday 18th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Creative Industries, Arts and Tourism (Chris Bryant)]

And now for something completely different! With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will make a statement regarding our launch of a public consultation on copyright and artificial intelligence.

The United Kingdom has a proud tradition of creativity and technical innovation. From our film and television sectors to video games, publishing, music, design and fashion, our creative industries are a cornerstone of our economy and our creative identity. They bring £125 billion to the economy and employ over 2.3 million people. James Bond, the Beatles, Vivienne Westwood, Adele, “Vera”, Bridget Riley, “Tomb Raider”, the Sugababes, “Football Manager”, Paddington and Paul Smith are all part of an immensely valuable British industry.

The creative industries are central to our economic future, and we are determined to help them flourish. The same is true of artificial intelligence—both as an enabler of other industries, including the creative industries, and as a sector in its own right. The Government are determined to capitalise on the UK’s position of strength in the global AI sector and will soon publish the AI opportunities action plan, which will set out an ambitious road map to unlock AI’s transformative potential across our economy and public services.

Both the creative industries and AI sectors are at the heart of our industrial strategy, and they are also increasingly interlinked. AI is already being used across the creative industries, from music and film production to publishing, architecture and design; it has transformed post-production, for instance. As of September 2024, more than 38% of creative industries businesses said that they have used AI technologies, with nearly 50% using AI to improve their business operations.

Strong copyright laws have been the bedrock of the creative industries, but as things stand, the application of UK copyright law to the training of AI models is fiercely disputed. Rights holders, including musicians, record labels, artists and news publishers, are finding it difficult to control the use of their works to train AI models, and they want and need a greater ability to manage such activity and to be paid for it. Likewise, AI developers, including UK-based start-ups, are finding it difficult to navigate copyright law and complain that the legal uncertainty means that they are unable to train leading models in the UK.

The status quo cannot continue. It risks limiting investment, innovation and growth in the creative industries, the AI sector and the wider economy. Neither side can afford to wait for expensive litigation—either here or in the US—to clarify the law, not least because courts in different jurisdictions may come to different conclusions and individual cases may not provide clarity across the sector. Nor can we simply rely on voluntary co-operation. That is why we think the Government must take proactive and thoughtful action that works for all parties.

The consultation published yesterday sets out clearly that the Government’s objectives on this issue are threefold: to enhance rights holders’ control of their material and their ability to be paid for its use, to support wide access to high-quality material to drive the development of leading AI models in the UK, and to secure greater transparency from AI developers in order to build trust with creators, creative industries and consumers. In short, we want to provide legal certainty for all and to secure enhanced licensing of content.

There are three key aspects to our consultation. The first is increased transparency from AI developers. That includes the content that they have used in training their large language models, how they acquire it, and any content generated by their models. In other words, consumers should know whether a book or song has been generated by a person or by artificial intelligence, and whose content helped generate it in the first place. The second aspect is a new system of rights reservation, whereby rights holders can withhold their content from being used unless and until it has been licensed. The third is an exception to copyright law for text and data mining where rights holders have licensed their content or otherwise chosen not to reserve their rights. That would improve access to content by AI developers, while allowing rights holders to control how their content is used for AI training.

Those measures are contingent upon each other. Progressed together, we believe this package of measures could enhance the ability of rights holders to protect their material and seek payment for its use through increased licensing, while also enabling AI developers to train leading models in the UK in full compliance with UK law. It will, however, only work if there is a proper system of rights reservation in place. I urge everyone to read and respond to the consultation document and to examine the safeguards we are proposing for rights holders. I would especially urge both AI developers and rights holders to work with us to identify a simple, practical, proportionate and effective technical system of rights reservation, without which the whole package will not work.

We are conscious that the UK does not operate in a hermetically sealed bubble, and this provides its own challenges. If we were to adopt a too tight regime based on proactive explicit permission, the danger is that international developers would continue to train their models using UK content accessed overseas but may not be able to deploy them in the UK. As AI becomes increasingly powerful and widely adopted globally, this could significantly disadvantage sectors across our economy, including the creative industries, and sweep the rug from underneath British AI developers. That is why, as well taking this approach in the UK, we are committed to international engagement and recognise the importance of international alignment.

This consultation is a joint effort between the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Intellectual Property Office, and between the Under-Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, my wonderful hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Feryal Clark), who has responsibility for AI, and me, with responsibility for the creative industries.

This is not an academic exercise. The consultation is absolutely clear that we will not implement these changes unless and until we are confident that we have a practical, practicable and effective plan that meets our objectives of enhancing rights holder control, providing legal certainty around AI firms’ access to content, and providing transparency for rights holders and AI developers of all sizes. My fellow Minister and I will be engaging directly with a wide range of people in an attempt to find practical and technical solutions to this question.

Many people have called this an existential question for our creative industries. They are right. We therefore see this consultation as a pivotal opportunity to ensure that sustained growth and innovation for the UK’s AI sector continues to benefit creators, businesses and consumers alike while preserving the values and principles that make our creative industries so unique. We believe that there is a potential win-win solution, and that the UK, with its strong traditions of copyright and technological innovation, is in a unique place to deliver it. I commend this statement to the House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the shadow Minister, Dr Ben Spencer.

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call our very own James Bond, Minister Chris Bryant.

[Chris Bryant]

Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Fortunately, I asked ChatGPT what the shadow Minister would ask me and it was pretty much right—although some of the questions from ChatGPT were rather more to the point. I will deal with the serious points he made.

First, the shadow Minister raised the point about mimicking artists. That is one of the things we are consulting on. There is a legitimate question about whether we should take further action in this country. Tennessee has acted: it has got its ELVIS Act—the Ensuring Likeness Voice and Image Security Act. California and a couple of other states in the United States of America have acted on this already, and whether we should move in that direction is a perfectly legitimate question.

Likewise, the shadow Minister referred to computer-generated works. He will probably know that under section 9(3) of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 there is provision that seems to guarantee the right for computer-generated art to be copyright-protected. That is not the case in most other countries, and it could be argued that developments in recent copyright law on the nature of originality would suggest that, unless a human being is directly involved in the creation of the work, there should not be copyright protection. We have suggested a direction of travel to get rid of section 9(3) of the Act.

The shadow Minister said that we have delayed bringing this forward, but I merely point out that for quite a long time the previous Government said that they would bring forward a voluntary system, bringing the two sides together. Nothing whatsoever came from that, so I am afraid that feels a bit of a cheat.

What I want to contest is the idea that we have sided with one or the other. There is a legitimate problem, which is that AI companies and the creative industries are at loggerheads in the courts in several different jurisdictions on several different points which are moot at the moment. We do not think that simply standing by the present situation will suffice because the danger is that in two or three years’ time all UK content will have been scraped by one or other AI developing company somewhere else in the world if there is no legal clarity in the UK. I would like to be able to bring all that home so that AI operators can work in this country with security under the law, using UK copyright that has been licensed and paid for, because that is another potential revenue stream for creators in this country.

The shadow Minister asks about extending the consultation. I am not going to extend the consultation. We want to crack on with this piece of work. Only two minutes earlier in his speech he said that we were delaying bringing it forward and then he said we should delay further. It is time that we seize hold of this. I certainly will meet with a large number of people. My fellow Minister my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North and I have met many different organisations and we will be providing a list because it will be in our transparency returns published soon, and the number must run to dozens if not hundreds. Of course, there are differing views, but I make it absolutely clear that the three measures we are talking about—the transparency on inputs and outputs that AI developers will have to provide, the provisions for creators to reserve their rights, and the exemption for data mining for commercial purposes—are contingent upon each other. We will not move forward with such a package unless there is a technical solution to the question of how people can reserve their rights.

At the weekend, I looked online to see what it would be like to try to reserve rights, by pretending to be various musicians and artists. At present, it is phenomenally difficult and complicated—other Members may have questions about this—and that must change. There must be a proper rights reservation system that is easy to use, practicable and enables creators, either individually or collectively, to assert and maintain control of their rights.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Chair of the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West) (Lab)]

The UK is in a unique position—second in the world in the creative industries, and in the top three for AI innovation—so getting the right solution to protect and support our intellectual property, while supporting and incentivising AI innovation, is uniquely important to our cultural and economic life.

I am a former regulator and chartered engineer, so I welcome the Minister’s decision to go with regulatory technology as the solution, and to challenge the tech sector to come up with technology to ensure we can have both the reservation of rights and the transparency of inputs to large language models, both of which are critical.

The tech sector too often spends less time protecting people and property than maximising profit, but the language of the consultation is a bit vague. The Minister talked about arriving at a plan rather than a solution, so will he make it absolutely clear that any text and data mining exemption is contingent on the technology being deliverable, implementable and workable, and that if the technology fails, the exemption fails?

[Chris Bryant]

I welcome the Chair of the Select Committee to her place. She is 100% right that we cannot have the text and data mining exemption for commercial purposes unless there is a proper rights reservation system in place. I do not know whether she has looked at rights reservation, but it is terribly complicated. People can use the robots exclusion protocol, but it is rather out of date and is avoided by many players in the market. It is very complicated and applies only to a person’s own website, whereas their creative input might not be on their personal website—it might be on somebody else’s.

I tried to create a Bridget Riley using an AI bot over the weekend. The bot had obviously trained itself on some Bridget Riley works, but it was a shockingly bad Bridget Riley—it was nowhere near. I wanted to ask whether it had used Bridget Riley’s work to learn how to make a Bridget Riley-like picture and, if so, whether Bridget Riley received any compensation. Bridget Riley could use another website, haveibeentrained.com, if she wanted, but it is phenomenally complicated. That is precisely what must change. The AI companies must come up with a technical solution, whether they produce music, text or whatever. Without that, we will not be able to progress.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

It is always easier if the Minister looks at the Chair, so we can ensure that we are sticking to time limits.

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

Dynamic Ticket Pricing

Debate between Nusrat Ghani and Chris Bryant

Tuesday 10th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

We would not want half-empty venues—despite looking around the Chamber—due to tickets being priced too high, nor venues and festivals that are not economically sustainable. What we should not accept, however—I am very clear about this, as are the Government —are practices that see fans of live events blindsided by price hikes, either because they were not provided with the right information up front or because that information was not provided clearly enough. Doing so might be in breach of existing consumer law, which requires businesses to be fair and transparent in their dealings with consumers. It is the responsibility of the CMA to investigate potential breaches of consumer law arising from or involving the use of dynamic pricing methods, and to take enforcement action where appropriate. I have already referred to its investigation in this case.

It is the responsibility of Government, however, to confront the wider policy questions around the use of dynamic pricing for tickets to live events. We have already said that we will look at this issue further to establish whether consumers are adequately protected under existing law, or whether more needs to be done. The hon. Member for Gosport asked whether this means that we are going to take our eye off the ball on the secondary ticketing market—it does not. We are very clear: we have a set of manifesto commitments, and we will bring out our consultation this autumn. Once we have completed that consultation, we expect to take the necessary action that we committed to in our general election manifesto. Since most of that action is in line with what the Select Committee was advocating before the general election, I hope we might still enjoy the Committee’s support for it.

The hon. Lady is right that we will also be looking at websites: that is part of the whole panoply of action. She also effectively referred to vertical integration within the ticketing system. Of course, that has to be part of our considerations, because it is another part of making sure that the market works for humanity—for fans, artists and the creative industries—rather than all of us having to operate as slaves of the market.

The Prime Minister has said that we are committed to putting fans at the heart of music and ending extortionate resales. As I have said, we will launch a consultation this autumn to work out how best we can do that. That consultation will look at tickets for live events, and a call for evidence on the topic of price transparency, including dynamic pricing, will be sent out. That will help us understand the needs of fans and the live events industry. To be absolutely clear with the House and the hon. Lady, that will be about tickets for live events, not the whole of dynamic pricing across all industries in the UK.

The hon. Lady asked when we will respond to the grassroots venues report from May. We have been getting our feet under the table as fast as we possibly can, and I am very eager to respond to that report in swift order. I take the responsibilities of Select Committees very seriously—I sat on the Culture, Media and Sport Committee from 2001 to 2005; it is one of the most important things I have done as a Member of Parliament—so we will respond as soon as we can. It will certainly be in the autumn, and I would like it to be as soon as possible after the Committee is fully formed.

In conclusion, I would like to thank the hon. Lady for securing this debate. I am not allowed to refer to what she tried to get as urgent questions, but I have now. We have a world-class live events sector in the UK, and I am absolutely determined that fans have every opportunity to experience it at first hand.

There is nothing better than someone standing in an audience—in a crowd, along with hundreds of other people—either experiencing an artist they have never seen before and suddenly realising, “My God, that’s just pierced right through to my heart”, or going to see somebody they have seen 50 times before, having listened to the album 75 times in the past week, and having that joyful moment. They will be different artists for every single one of us, but I want far more people in this country to be able to enjoy that opportunity. I want every child to have a creative education, and I want them to have the opportunities that so many others enjoy in my constituency and every other.

I acknowledge that dynamic pricing can help match supply with demand, resulting in both higher and lower prices, but when it is used as a business model it needs to be transparent and fair, and that is what we want to ensure.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

It was wonderful to hear from two musicians, and Sir Chris Bryant has given away his true old age.

Question put and agreed to.

British Steel

Debate between Nusrat Ghani and Chris Bryant

Wednesday 8th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Ms Ghani]

Recycled steel can be recycled infinite times, so it does a huge amount for the circular economy. Because of the way technology has moved on, steel can now be used in many more sectors. We have a huge surplus of scrap steel, which we end up exporting to countries such as Turkey, Bangladesh and Pakistan. We could be reusing that in the UK economy. But as I said, these are commercial decisions and nothing has been concluded. The statement put out by British Steel was a plan or a proposal.

[Sir Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Does the Minister not accept that it is a matter of national security that we should retain the ability to create primary steel in this country?

[Ms Ghani]

I have put it on record previously that we need to ensure that we have blast furnace capacity in the UK, and that, fundamentally, should be at the Scunthorpe site. There are matters involving national security—for instance, the anxieties about steel dumping from China and the issues emanating from Russia—and as we continue to manufacture at pace, we need to be able to ensure that we have access to steel manufactured here in the UK.

Trade Bill

Debate between Nusrat Ghani and Chris Bryant

Consideration of Lords amendments
Tuesday 9th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Ms Ghani]

Indeed. Some colleagues have said that we have bent over too much and that there is too much power with the Executive, but we have separated the power: the courts determine genocide, Parliament opines and the Executive are in charge.

We are unsure what the objections are now. I tabled a question to the Government to ask who determines genocide, and the response was:

“The determination as to whether a situation constitutes genocide is factually and legally complex and should only be made by a competent court following a careful and detailed examination.”

That means that any Select Committee paper would be rubbished.

The values of our country do not include enriching ourselves on the back of slave labour or using our new-found post-Brexit freedom to trade with states that commit and profit from genocide. Britain is better than that. Last week, the Board of Deputies of British Jews highlighted the plight of the Uyghurs and the chilling similarity to Nazi Germany: 2 million Uyghurs are in prison camps. The late Rabbi Sacks was once asked where God was when the holocaust took place. He responded that the real question was: where was man?

Let the record show that, on this day, men and women in this House were ready to vote on the genocide amendment, to lead the world in standing up to tyrannical regimes that commit genocide, to honour our vow of “never again”, to ensure that we are never complicit in genocidal trade, and to put Britain on the right side of history. Today, we were denied that vote, and this House was denied its say.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab) [V]]

This country should never trade with any country where genocide is being practised. We are as guilty as others when we seek to perpetuate that kind of trade. It is appalling that all five signs of genocide incorporated in the genocide convention are now present in China in Xinjiang province, and that President Xi is personally implicated.

It is no use us clasping our pearls, signing holocaust memorial books or weeping about genocide in the 1930s if we are not prepared to do every single thing that we possibly can today to protect the vulnerable. That means wielding every single instrument, national and international, commercial and diplomatic, to protect the victims of abuse. We failed for far too long because we delayed in the 1930s and ended up having to go to war. Their humanity is our humanity; we are involved in their lives and in their deaths.

China already makes it impossible for us to act in an international court or any international body, so of course we should use the UK courts. I say to the Chair of the Justice Committee that Lord Hope of Craighead made it absolutely clear that a preliminary determination of genocide should be located within the High Court precisely because it is not a criminal process. That is the whole point of the amendment. It should be the courts, not politicians, that make these decisions because they know how to sift evidence and are able to require witnesses and evidence to be brought before them.

I saw the amendment that has been presented, supposedly by the Chair of the Justice Committee, last week; it was very definitely a Government amendment long before it appeared on the Order Paper. It is as tawdry a piece of parliamentary jiggery-pokery as I have seen in my 20 years in the House. Select Committees already have every single one of the powers that are supposedly being given to us by the amendment. The Government already dismisses every single substantive motion agreed by the House if they just do not like it. They did so on the Yazidis, when the House’s view was unanimous, and they did so on the Foreign Affairs Committee reports on the Rohingya.

By constructing the amendment in the way they have, the Government have deliberately denied the House a clear vote on genocide and how we would like to tackle it in relation to trade. The bottom line is that the Government seem to do everything in their power to prevent us as a nation from standing clearly and unambiguously against human rights abuses in China, and up with this we will not put.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nusrat Ghani and Chris Bryant

Thursday 1st March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ms Ghani]

I apologise to my right hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire Dales (Sir Patrick McLoughlin) for my earlier mistake.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Resign!

[Ms Ghani]

Perhaps not right now, but I will consider it in future. I was expecting a question on High Speed 2.