The Government has published proposals for reform of copyright law in the light of ongoing legal uncertainty around the use of copyrighted works for the training of (generative) artificial intelligence (AI) models – see here for full details.
Background
The Government contends that current arrangements are not working for both the creative sectors and the AI industry. Rightsholders are concerned that their works are being used to train AI models without their permission and that they have been unable to secure remuneration through licensing agreements. AI firms claim that there is a lack of clarity over how they can legally access training data and that this uncertainty risks stunting AI innovation within the UK.
In response to these concerns, the Government proposes to introduce a “text and mining exception” that would permit copyrighted works to be used in the training of AI models within the UK, subject to a rights reservation by rightsholders (i.e. an ‘opt out’). In addition, the Government is proposing other changes, including certain transparency requirements to make it compulsory for AI tools and users to make disclosures about AI, for example, the sources of the training data and to identify works created using AI tools. The Government is also consulting on a possible change to copyright law that would mean that computer-generated works would no longer benefit from copyright protection within the UK.
The changes proposed above would bring the UK copyright position more into alignment with the current EU position on copyright and AI.
How to respond to this survey
TIGA believes that its members may wish to prevent other AI tools from being trained on their game’s copyrighted audio-visual works, but may also wish to use AI tools themselves in its businesses in some cases.
TIGA would be grateful if you could respond to the survey questions in the link below so that we can use the findings to represent the video games industry’s perspective on the important subject of copyright law to policy makers. You do not have to answer all questions and may leave questions blank that you do not wish to answer.
Please reply to the survey by 5pm on Friday 7th February 2025.
PLEASE NOTE THAT THE RESULTS OF THIS SURVEY WILL BE ANONYMISED. YOUR INDIVIDUAL ANSWERS WILL NOT BE MADE PUBLIC, but the aggregated answers may be used as part of TIGA’s consultation response.