Tech firms must tell newspapers when they use material to train AI, under Lords plan

Telegraph

12-05-2025

Tech companies will be required to tell musicians, artists and newspapers when they use their material to train AI models under an amendment backed by the House of Lords.
The Government suffered a defeat on Monday from peers who argued that its Data Bill did not do enough to protect creatives from 'theft' by AI firms.
The amendment, which will now return to MPs for consideration, would force tech companies to strike licensing deals with content creators to use their work or face legal action.
The debate came after more than 400 artists and industry groups, including Sir Elton John, Robbie Williams and Shirley Bassey, signed a letter urging Sir Keir Starmer to do more to protect the arts.
Lord Black, who is the deputy chairman of the Telegraph Media Group, said the 'centuries-old right' to copyright protection was in danger because the Government is 'legalising theft' and allowing AI to 'plunder someone else's work and profit from it'.
During the House of Lords debate, he argued that AI posed an 'existential threat' to a free press, by allowing companies to steal news companies' content to train their models.
He said: '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.'
News organisations are especially at risk of copyright violations by tech companies, many of which are looking to develop their own AI news services.
Several of the UK's largest news companies, including The Telegraph, signed the letter to Sir Keir urging him to introduce a requirement for tech companies to inform the creators of content they have used.
'Threat to democracy'
Lord Black added: '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 a dynamic licensing market, the threat to free media is genuinely existential. As a consequence the threat to democracy itself is also genuinely existential.'
The amendment, by Baroness Kidron, would require AI companies to publish details of copyrighted material they use to train models, and make it accessible to content owners upon request.
Ministers have effectively abandoned earlier plans that would have given AI companies the power to train their models on copyrighted content unless the owner 'opted out'.
Peter Kyle, the Science Secretary, is now considering a new licence-based model. The latest version of the Data Bill requires ministers to draw up a policy on AI and copyright within a year.
However, the signatories of the letter argue that the process will take too long, and they will be forced to 'give our work away at the behest of a handful of powerful overseas tech companies' if ministers do not act sooner.
The open letter by the artists published on Saturday urged the Government to 'put transparency at the heart of the copyright regime'.
It was also signed by Tom Jones, Eric Clapton, Dua Lipa, Lord Lloyd Webber and members of Coldplay.
The Department of Science, Innovation and Technology has said it will consult on a 'package of measures that we hope will work for both sectors' and that 'no changes will be considered unless we are completely satisfied they work for creators'.
But Baroness Kidron said that transparency was required so the Government could enforce existing copyright legislation, telling peers: 'We do not need to change copyright law.
'We need transparency so that we can enforce copyright law, because what you cannot see, you cannot enforce.'
She added: 'If this Bill does not protect copyright now, by the time they work out their policy there will be little to save.'
Baroness Jones, a Labour Lords minister, said the Government would not support the transparency requirement and that it would not be a 'silver bullet' to prevent copyright violations against creatives.
During Monday's debate, peers also backed an amendment put forward by the Conservatives, which would require public bodies to record sex data rather than gender data.
The party argued that 'confusion' among police officers, nurses and prison officers had often led to them recording gender data rather than sex data.
The amendment was backed by gender critical feminist campaigners, who said the current rules do not allow patients to know the sex of their doctor, only their gender.
It is likely to be defeated by Labour MPs when it returns to the Commons in the coming weeks.