How we've supported artists' rights in February
Across February, we've been actively campaigning for the protection of artists' rights on behalf of our members.
In particular, we have been working hard to ensure that artists' voices are heard as the Government looks to define it's approach to the regulation of Generative AI, through the Copyright and Artificial Intelligence Consultation, which closed on 25 February.
Panel: Supporting Creative Futures in Arts, Culture and AI
As the conversation around artificial intelligence (AI) continues, DACS convened a critical panel at this year's AI Fringe, coinciding with the Paris AI Action Summit.
The panel delved into the challenges and opportunities that Generative AI presents to the creative sectors. As AI technologies reshape the landscape of artistic production and intellectual property (IP), the session aimed to address how considered policy approaches can ensure sustainable growth while safeguarding the value of creative work
Speakers:
- Thangam Debbonaire, Former Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, and Advisor at UKAI
- Victoria Ivanova, R&D strategic Lead at Serpentine Galleries
- Suhair Khan, Founder of open-ended
- Reema Selhi, Head of Policy and International at DACS
Moderated by Kester Brewin, Associate Director, Institute for the Future of Work.
Watch the recording of the panel below:
Advocating for artists' rights in Parliament
Throughout the Copyright and AI Consultation, DACS has met with MPs and Peers from across political parties, to highlight the concerns of our members and the wider sector. Several MPs highlighted concerns around the Government’s proposed ‘rights-reservation’ system, and the need for improved transparency on the part of AI developers, referencing DACS' research.
When discussing the rise of AI and the challenges it poses for artists, my constituents are far from the luddites that some would like to dismiss them as. Polling from the Design and Artists Copyright Society shows that 84% of artists would agree to license their work for AI training so long as they received fair pay for it.
Labour, East Thanet
Legislators, policymakers and industry leaders must heed the creator’s voice and recognise the existential threat that AI poses to their livelihoods if we forfeit copyright as we know it.”
Labour, Bury North
Responding to the AI consultation
DACS submitted a comprehensive response to the copyright and artificial intelligence consultation, stressing that the strongest route to ensuring the policy objectives of control, access and transparency are met is to ensure that AI developers are – like many other industries around the world – acting in compliance with copyright law.
DACS considers that licensing copyright, through collective or blanket licences coupled with transactional and bespoke licensing for specific uses, will not only deliver the fair rewards to artists and other creators, but bring legal certainty to technology companies, in turn improving public trust in their AI applications.
In our response, which we will be sharing more details on in the coming weeks, we have made the following recommendations:
- The Government should not adopt its proposed text and data mining exception, but look to encourage licensing instead. We urge Government to enhance growth and productivity of the creative and cultural industries, rather than placing extra burdens and administration on both creators and publicly-funded cultural institutions.
- The Government should support the UK’s strong copyright framework by encouraging copyright licensing, bringing benefits to creators and certainty to AI developers.
- The Government should demand greater levels of transparency from AI developers, who should disclose what material has been used to train their models, where and when this material was accessed, and whether permission from rightsholders had been obtained.
To support our members and other freelance creatives to respond to the consultation, we also produced a guide highlighting the key questions and suggested responses.
Campaigning with other rightsholders
DACS is a member of the Creative Rights in AI Coalition, a group of rightsholder representatives from across the creative industries, publishing and media.
The coalition has produced a letter to allow individual rightsholders and creatives to write to their MP in support of the Coalition's principles of Transparency, Licensing, Growth and Innovation.
