As the BBC reported, the United Kingdom’s Technology Secretary Liz Kendall has stated that the UK’s government was no longer taking the position that AI companies could use copyrighted works unless the creators opted out.

The proposal had faced vocal opposition from creators, including Sir Elton John, Dua Lipa, Sir Paul McCartney, Kate Bush, and Sting.

Opponents warned this policy would constitute “legalized theft,” causing mass copyright infringement and harming the ability of people in creative industries to earn a livelihood.

Critics said the policy would have a negative effect on a £126bn industry and 2.4 million jobs in the UK.

Creators argued that AI firms should obtain licenses to works (opt-in), and that creators should not be required to hunt down every instance of their work being used in order to opt-out.

More than 1,000 artists, including Kate Bush, Annie Lennox, The Clash, and Tori Amos, contributed to a “silent” protest album called “Is This What We Want?” and made up of recordings of empty studios and performance spaces.

The UK government’s position on the use of copyrighted material for AI training is now unclear, and the government says it “no longer has a preferred option” for what to do next.

As the BBC noted,

It is attempting to balance the interests of the two sectors by giving creatives control of how their work is used, while recognising AI models need to be trained on work such as writing, music and video.

In a report published on Wednesday, the government said there was “no consensus on how these objectives should be achieved”

Mandy Hill, managing director at Cambridge University Press and the president of the Publishers Association, said the UK government “has not entirely ruled out allowing tech companies to use copyrighted content to train AI models without a license.”

Meanwhile, the European Parliament has adopted several recommendations to address questions about the interplay of generative AI (GenAI) and copyright.

As EuroNews reported, members of the EU Parliament adopted a resolution demanding strict transparency, copyright protection, and fair payment for creators when their work is used to train GenAI.

The resolution passed with 460 votes to 71.

Among other things, the members of Parliament voted to create a register at the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) of copyrighted works used to train GenAI models in an effort to ensure that copyright owners are compensated for such uses of their works.

As EuroNews notes,

Among its key proposals is the creation of a European register at the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) that would list every copyrighted work used to train AI models, as well as the artists who have opted out of having their work used. The report also suggests that companies disclose which websites they have scraped for training data.

Other key aspects and goals of the resolution are:

• to protect news media and artists from GenAI systems that steal content and reduce traffic revenue to creator and publisher websites.
• a ban on AI “nudification” applications and improved measures against the creation of non-consensual intimate imagery and sexualized deepfakes.

This vote was in response to recommendations urging lawmakers to find a “permanent” solution to protect copyrighted materials from use by GenAI companies.

Failing to comply with these requirements “could be tantamount to infringement of copyright,” potentially exposing GenAI companies to lawsuits and other legal actions.

Members of the EU Parliament said that copyrighted material must be “fairly remunerated” to protect the EU’s creative sector, which generates almost seven percent of the EU’s gross domestic product.

Under current EU rules, companies can use copyrighted materials for text and data mining, including AI training, unless a creator has “reserved their rights,” according to the secretary-general of the European Composer and Songwriter Alliance (ECSA). I.e., the EU now has the “opt out” model.

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