We will be posting excerpts from the Artist Rights Institute’s comment in the UK’s Intellectual Property Office proceeding on AI and copyright. That proceeding is called a “consultation” where the Office solicits comments from the public (wherever located) about a proposed policy.

In this case it was the UK government’s proposal to require creators to “opt out” of AI data scraping by expanding the law in the UK governing “text and data mining” which is what Silicon Valley wants in a big way. This idea produced an enormous backlash from the creative community that we’ll also be covering in coming weeks as it’s very important that Trichordist readers be up to speed on the latest skulduggery by Big Tech in snarfing down all the world’s culture to train their AI (which has already happened and now has to be undone). For a backgrounder on the “text and data mining” controversy, watch this video by George York of the Digital Creators Coalition speaking at the Artist Rights Institute in DC.

In this section of the comment we offer a simple rule of thumb or policy guideline by which to measure the Government’s rules (which could equally apply in America): Can an artist file a criminal complaint against someone like Sam Altman?

If an artist is more likely to be able to get the police to stop their car from being stolen off the street than to get the police to stop the artist’s life’s work from being stolen online by a heavily capitalized AI platform, the policy will fail

Why Can’t Creators Call 999 [or 911]?

We suggest a very simple policy guideline—if an artist is more likely to be able to get the police to stop their car from being stolen off the street than to get the police to stop the artist’s life’s work from being stolen online by a heavily capitalized AI platform, the policy will fail.  Alternatively, if an artist can call the police and file a criminal complaint against a Sam Altman or a Sergei Brin for criminal copyright infringement, now we are getting somewhere.

This requires that there be a clear “red light/green light” instruction that can easily be understood and applied by a beat copper.  This may seem harsh, but in our experience with the trillion-dollar market cap club, the only thing that gets their attention is a legal action that affects behavior rather than damages.  Our experience suggests that what gets their attention most quickly is either an injunction to stop the madness or prison to punish the wrongdoing. 

As a threshold matter, it is clear that AI platforms intend to continue scraping all the world’s culture for their purposes without obtaining consent or notifying rightsholders.  It is likely that the bigger platforms already have.  For example, we have found our own writings included in CoPilot outputs.  Not only did we not consent to that use, but we were also never asked.  Moreover, CoPilot’s use of these works clearly violates our terms of service.  This level of content scraping is hardly what was contemplated with the “data mining” exceptions.