UK publishers urge Rishi Sunak to safeguard intellectual property from AI

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UK publishing industry chiefs have called on Rishi Sunak to safeguard the intellectual property rights of the creative industries from artificial intelligence ahead of a government-hosted summit on the developing technology.

In a letter seen by the Financial Times, the Publishers Association (PA) urged the prime minister to ensure that “UK intellectual property law . . . be respected when any content is ingested by AI systems and a licence obtained in advance”.

The warning from the trade body — which represents book, journal, audio and digital publishers worth about £7bn to Britain’s economy — reflects concerns that ministers will overlook the creative industries at the AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park in November.

Downing Street said this month that the conference would bring together government, academics and leading AI companies “to build on developing the regulatory guardrails we need for the safe and responsible development of AI”.

Tech groups are already using “creative” content, such as text and imagery, from newspapers, books, art and music to help train their AI models.

But publishing groups fear that, without adequate IP and copyright protection, nothing will stop AI from mining entire series of novels, back catalogues or journal articles to create cheap, “ripped-off” versions of authentic work. 

The PA’s chief executive Dan Conway said publishers “firmly agree that the UK should become a global leader in safe, transparent and ultimately ethical AI” and called on Sunak to create “the right business conditions” to develop the technology in the UK.

But he cautioned that the training of AI systems “should be done transparently, with the consent of, and in a manner that credits and fairly compensates, the creator or IP rights holder ie under licence”.

Conway’s call echoed one by the House of Commons culture, media and sport committee, which on Wednesday urged the government not to allow developers of AI products to train the technology via copyrighted works of art.

Publishers have already reported widespread evidence of copyright infringement for inputted AI data.

Publishing’s success had long been “underpinned by the UK’s gold-standard IP framework”, Conway added in the letter, which was also sent to culture secretary Lucy Frazer, AI minister Viscount Camrose, and Matt Clifford and Jonathan Black, Sunak’s representatives for AI.

In written evidence to MPs last year, the PA warned that inadequate IP and copyright protection “would be profoundly damaging to human creativity and expression, as well as the livelihoods of researchers, authors and publishers”.

Its letter is the latest sign of growing unease over the government’s ability and willingness to protect the creative and media industries as ministers talk up the productivity and economic benefits of AI.

Officials from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) last week wrote to executives in both sectors seeking their views on future policymaking.

The DCMS said: “We will take a balanced and pragmatic approach to the use of AI across creative industries, which allows both AI innovators and our world-leading creative sector to continue to grow. To support this, the Intellectual Property Office is working with AI firms and rights holders to produce an agreement and guidance on copyright.”

Additional reporting by Cristina Criddle in London