Principles for Copyright and Generative AI

The rapid development of generative artificial intelligence (AI) presents many potential benefits and opportunities for individuals and our society. However, without appropriate guardrails, generative AI also risks damaging and undermining many aspects of society, and in particular the creative industries.

The creative industries are a significant and growing sector, worth £126bn annually to the UK economy¹, and an employer of more than three million people in the UK.

As generative AI develops, it is vital that creators and rightsholders have the option to choose if and how their works are used in training and in outputs, and that generative AI tools, through their technological design, comply with copyright law and provide adequate transparency for the purposes of scrutiny.

To ensure that generative AI is developed and deployed safely, ethically and legally, CLA’s Principles on Copyright and Generative AI, as outlined below, must form part of the new Labour Government’s policy framework for governing generative AI. Generative AI must value the role of authentic human creation and the development and deployment of this technology should not diminish the fundamental purpose of copyright: to incentivise creativity and innovation by remunerating creators and rightsholders. Generative AI tools must operate within the copyright framework including whenever they generate value from the use of copyright-protected works.

We welcome the new Government’s commitment to the creative industries, and we support decisive action for governing AI in a way that supports this critically important sector. If generative AI is to thrive and deliver trusted quality outcomes which in turn will lead to greater adoption and use of such technology – supporting not just the UK’s economy but also innovation more broadly – then it is imperative that any legal or regulatory governance of generative AI is founded on the following five principles:

Compliance with Copyright law – the UK’s ‘gold-standard’ copyright framework must be respected and adhered to. Developers and deployers of generative AI must have in place appropriate licences to govern their use of copyright-protected works in the training and development of their systems.

Permission Based – permission is required for the use of creators and rightsholders works by generative AI. It must be simple for creators and rightsholders to communicate whether they want their works to be used for training generative AI before ingestion and training takes place, and creators and rightsholders decisions must be respected.

Fair Remuneration and Compensation – if creators and rightsholders choose to allow their works to be used to train generative AI systems, they must be remunerated fairly – and this extends to compensation for any retrospective, unauthorised use.

The authors, artists and publishers that CLA and its members represent rely on the revenue generated from the licensing of their copyright, not only to make a living, but also to support the investment of time and resources needed to create new works, for the wider benefit of our society.

Transparency and Attribution – as a minimum requirement, developers and deployers of generative AI must be transparent about the works which have been ingested and used to train their systems, including copyright-protected works.

Accessibility and transparency of this information will help to ensure that creators and rightsholders receive fair compensation for the use of their works and will enable users to make informed decisions about the trustworthiness and ethics of generative AI and any outputs.

Authenticity – it must be clear to the public what outputs from generative AI systems are human generated and which are not. Any manipulation and/or use of copyright-protected works by generative AI systems should not undermine the integrity, accuracy or original meaning of the original work.

We will continue to review our principles as the technological landscape evolves. We look forward to working with the new Government to support positive legal and regulatory developments in this area to ensure the fair treatment of creators and rightsholders.

^{1 https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/contribution-of-the-arts-to-society-and-the-economy/}

Please note these Principles were updated on 6th November 2024.