Labour is allowing the plunder of our creativity

Telegraph

01-05-2025

The support for my amendments passed in the House of Lords to protect copyright material from the predations of AI developers has been overwhelming.
It came not only from the big names of the creative sector – Elton John, Paul McCartney, Dua Lipa, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Tom Stoppard, Jeanette Winterson, Barbara Broccoli, Eric Fellner, Pippa Harris and Sir Simon Rattle to state just a few – but also UK AI, Universal, Sony, Warner Music, and a consortium of luxury businesses including iconic car manufacturers, fashion brands, and many luxury hotels and shops that are global ambassadors for the UK – contributing over £81 billion a year to the economy, in addition to the £126 billion of the creative industries.
The support comes from across arts and business because this is not simply an economic issue but a defining one for our British identity.
The Government is proposing to allow AI companies based anywhere in the world (read the US and China) use of all copyrighted material by default, without permission. It is theft by any other name, but it also means that every future piece of creative work is free game for the companies unless the owner has opted out.
Opting out is both technically unfeasible and puts the burden on the victim not the perpetrator. This issue has united politicians across the party divide. As a Conservative peer responding to my thanks for his support simply said, 'How kind of you to write. Conservatives believe in property rights.'
He's right, the Government is – against the will of their rightful owners – transferring property rights from the UK to the behemoths of Silicon Valley and Hangzhou.
AI needs three things to work: skills, energy and data. In the UK we punch above our weight in skills, though we are no match for the US or China; we are crippled by our expensive energy and so for the foreseeable future processing itself will largely take place elsewhere.
But when it comes to data, we are king. The great collections in our libraries and museums, our publicly held data – whether NHS, geospatial or education – and our creative industries, from performing and visual arts, to music and media in all its forms, they all are reservoirs of a wealth of extremely valuable data. This data will become ever more valuable as the world becomes more dominated by AI-derived content.
This is why, British luxury businesses have voiced their concerns that decades of investments in their brands is being eroded by the Government's plans. It is why rival newspapers in an unprecedented truce wrapped themselves in the 'make it fair' slogan. This expressed their collective concern that inaccurate and biased AI news is stealing traffic from branded and editorially derived journalism.
It is why more than 70 creative professional organisations spanning illustration, photography, music, theatre, film and product design, have written to the Government asking for a change in policy to protect UK growth.
The creative industries do more than contribute to the nation's wealth and create a network of 2.4 million jobs. They tell our national story – which results in the UK's phenomenal soft power, inward investment and tourism.
As more people question the role of the UK in a changing world, this Government policy is wittingly giving way to the US tech companies. These are the same tech companies that don't want to pay the Digital Services Tax, that want to water down our child safety laws. They are the same companies that routinely – indeed deliberately – distribute the angry, the partisan, the ugly and the incorrect in the war for our attention. Allowing them to be the arbiters of our culture risks devastating economic consequences for the creative sector and the country as a whole.
The Government's measure strips away the income stream and the ownership of meticulously generated content. But it is not just a financial question. This content reflects what it is to be and feel human, it tells the story of our four nations, and brings us all joy. The policy is madness indeed.
On May 7, the Government will push their Bill through the Commons without my amendments, putting in their place empty promises of impact assessments and technical reviews that will take years to complete and leave the AI companies to continue to steal in plain sight.
It is a citizen's right to sell, rent or hold the fruits of their labour and it must not be given by Government to Silicon Valley or Hangzhou. On May 12 I will relay my amendments in the Lords. I hope colleagues from all sides, will join me in the lobby to protect our heritage, preserve our world-class creative industries and keep British culture, and the huge financial rewards it generates, British.