23-05-2025
ALEX BRUMMER: Britain's copyright betrayal by Labour
Missing so far from Keir Starmer's trade deals is any attempt to shield Britain's intellectual property.
Gifted British musicians nursed the hope that vengeful rules regarding visas, work permits and the movement of goods in Europe that have complicated their lives might have been lifted.
Elton John rightly is outraged that the Government is prepared to abandon Britain's creative sector to encourage big tech AI investment.
He describes the Government as 'absolute losers' and argues it is a 'criminal offence' to let Silicon Valley use copyright-protected work without permission.
Britain is a pioneer in the use of copyright to protect creators with laws which date back to the early 18th century.
But Starmer and his Technology Secretary Peter Kyle seem determined to override that heritage.
As originally previewed, before 'Liberation Day' on April 2, a tech deal – which allowed Google, Facebook-owner Meta and Apple freedom to harvest UK creativity – was expected to be at the heart of a UK-US pact. In exchange for AI being allowed to roam freely on this side of the pond, big tech would step up inward investment. Intellectual property, Britain's up-and-coming artistes and creators and established powerhouses such as Elton and JK Rowling would be sacrificed.
Essentially, a craven Labour government, desperate to find some levers to drive growth, was adopting a Trumpian agenda. In Washington last month, I dined with old friend Shira Perlmutter, a distinguished legal academic, who headed the US Copyright Office – an agency responsible to Congress. Her branch has been commissioned by the White House to produce a report on AI. There was a veiled indication that if the administration disagreed with the independent findings, funding for the Copyright Office could be reduced.
A draft report found that the use of large language models for 'research and analysis' using copyright material for training purposes was permissible. But when AI is trained on copyrighted journalism, artworks, books and other original material – to generate a product to sell – that likely breached fair use protections, it found. That is – in legalese – much the same case that Elton is making in Britain.
Soon after the draft report appeared, Perlmutter received an email from the White House. She had been dismissed from her post with no due process. Democratic Senators Adam Schiff and Chuck Schumer described the firing as 'unlawful' because Congress had shielded the US Copyright Office from politics. This treatment of one of the most respected guardians of copyright law must be regarded as unacceptable in a democracy. But Trump and his acolytes willingly trample on constitutional values in support of their own ends.
What big tech wants it gets. The power of lobbying by Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook and the other Silicon Valley tech bros has no boundaries. Cook was swiftly able to exclude mobile devices from punitive Trump tariffs imposed on China. AI is big tech's new frontier and anything or anyone who gets in its way receives the White House hairdryer treatment and worse.
Of course, the UK must rub along with the US. Jaguar Land Rover might have faced near extinction had not Peter Mandelson, on behalf of Labour, secured a tariff reduction deal. Labour's willingness to accede to the Trump copyright agenda, destroying four centuries of copyright at a stroke, is indefensible.
