Ed Newton-Rex
@ednewtonrex • 12,200 subscribers
CEO of @fairlytrained / Composer. Involuntary training data provider.
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🚨 It looks like the UK government is gearing up to upend copyright law in favour of AI companies, legalising the theft of their work. This is despite creatives' huge protests, and despite previous proposals being roundly rejected by the public. There are rumours it is considering introducing a 'commercial research exception' for AI training. This would be disastrous. It would mean handing the life's work of British creatives to AI companies for free, to train their models on. In the House of Lords today, a government minister refused to rule this out. To be clear, this would amount to legalising theft. It would fly in the face of public opinion on what is fair, and would mean a surrender of British creatives' work by this Labour government. It would mean the lobbying by big US tech firms had succeeded, and the protests of the UK's creatives had been ignored. People's work is not the government's to give away. If you're in the UK and you care about creatives and the creative industries, please write to your MP!
Ed Newton-Rex262,897 Aufrufe • vor 3 Monaten
Astonishing admission from Ollie Ilott, the Director General for AI in the British government. He says you wouldn't want an opt-out from AI training to be too easy to use, because the primary goal would be to get more work for AI companies to train on 🤯 Let that sink in. This is an admission that the opt-out the government proposed wasn't really about giving creatives control. That was a charade. It was the opposite - it was *intended* to ensure some missed the chance to opt-out, and to maximise the free handout to AI companies. This is a huge admission to make, and shows the government is fully aware of how unfair on creatives an opt-out would be. They should definitively rule out moving to an opt-out model.
Ed Newton-Rex93,245 Aufrufe • vor 4 Monaten
Baroness Kidron may have saved the UK's creative industries with her speech in the House of Lords today. She managed to get the House of Lords to approve her amendments to the Data (Use and Access) Bill, which among other things requires overseas gen AI companies to respect UK copyright law if they sell their products in the UK. (As a reminder, it is illegal to train commercial gen AI models on ©️ work without a licence in the UK.) What's astonishing is that her amendments passed despite The Labour Party reportedly being whipped to vote against them, and the Conservatives largely abstaining. Essentially, Labour voted against the amendments, and *everyone else who voted* voted to protect copyright holders. This should give you some sense of the strength of feeling over the government's plans to upend copyright law to favour AI companies. The bill still has to go through the Commons. But, as it stands, it would require generative AI companies selling their products in the UK to license any copyrighted training data they use. This is what standing up for the creative industries looks like. I strongly suggest you watch her entire speech. (If you want to read it instead, the link to the transcript is in the first reply ⬇️)
Ed Newton-Rex153,672 Aufrufe • vor 1 Jahr
The UK government was just defeated in the House of Lords for a *fifth* time over AI training data transparency. The Lords continue to insist, rightly, that AI companies be required to disclose their training data. Without transparency, creators can't enforce their rights. Please watch the electrifying end to Baroness Kidron's closing speech ahead of the vote. Creators have no greater champion.
Ed Newton-Rex63,600 Aufrufe • vor 1 Jahr
This clip makes it abundantly clear the The Labour Party government is planning to introduce a copyright exception for commercial research (read: AI training) - which would be disastrous for British creatives. When asked the simple question of whether AI companies will be required to license copyrighted work they want to train on in the UK (as they are required to do at the moment!), this government minister says: "Our priority is to ensure that the UK is ready for AI-related risks while supporting responsible innovation and long-term growth." If you are planning on maintaining robust copyright laws that protect creators, this is not the answer you give. This is the answer you give if you're preparing to try to justify upending the law and throwing creatives under the bus. Creatives in the UK gearing up for a big fight, I think.
Ed Newton-Rex17,168 Aufrufe • vor 3 Monaten
This speech by James Frith MP in parliament yesterday is what it looks like to stand up for the creative industries. I hope the rest of the The Labour Party party takes note. "Proposals for new, broad exceptions to copyright—and the burden of opting out of having one’s life’s work taken without permission—undermine the very principles of copyright and of trade and commerce." Strongly encourage watching the whole thing.
Ed Newton-Rex36,691 Aufrufe • vor 1 Jahr
![Chris Bryant today all but admitted why the government refuses to accept legislation that makes AI companies reveal their training data: They are going to offer creators transparency legislation *later*, in return for upending copyright law & letting AI companies train on people's life's work without permission. His justification for rejecting transparency legislation: "If we're going to get to that proper compromise solution [between creators and AI companies], it's going to require all the bits of the jigsaw to be put together into a comprehensive picture." That is: if creators want to know when AI companies are using their work, they're going to have to give up their rights. There is no other way of interpreting this comment I can think of. He is saying creators can't get transparency from AI companies without giving something up. And there is nothing to give up except their current rights under the law, which compel AI companies to ask their permission before using their work. Bryant & co. have given no other reason to reject transparency legislation. AI companies are breaking the law, and government refuses to hold them to account. IMO this is awful treatment of the creative sector by the government. Commercial generative AI training on copyrighted work without a license is illegal in the UK; creators cannot enforce their rights, because training happens behind closed doors; the government won't empower creators to enforce their rights without requiring them to give up other rights. Bookmark this. I hope I'm wrong, and that this is not the government's plan - but I see no other conclusion you can draw from Chris Bryant's words here.](https://image.24vids.com/tw-1932467947014111677/amplify_video_thumb/1932465551764590592/img/pD_cxnY983kx6VgE.jpg)
Chris Bryant today all but admitted why the government refuses to accept legislation that makes AI companies reveal their training data: They are going to offer creators transparency legislation *later*, in return for upending copyright law & letting AI companies train on people's life's work without permission. His justification for rejecting transparency legislation: "If we're going to get to that proper compromise solution [between creators and AI companies], it's going to require all the bits of the jigsaw to be put together into a comprehensive picture." That is: if creators want to know when AI companies are using their work, they're going to have to give up their rights. There is no other way of interpreting this comment I can think of. He is saying creators can't get transparency from AI companies without giving something up. And there is nothing to give up except their current rights under the law, which compel AI companies to ask their permission before using their work. Bryant & co. have given no other reason to reject transparency legislation. AI companies are breaking the law, and government refuses to hold them to account. IMO this is awful treatment of the creative sector by the government. Commercial generative AI training on copyrighted work without a license is illegal in the UK; creators cannot enforce their rights, because training happens behind closed doors; the government won't empower creators to enforce their rights without requiring them to give up other rights. Bookmark this. I hope I'm wrong, and that this is not the government's plan - but I see no other conclusion you can draw from Chris Bryant's words here.
Ed Newton-Rex24,061 Aufrufe • vor 1 Jahr
Powerful message from Sir Paul McCartney to the The Labour Party government on their plans to upend copyright law to benefit AI companies: “We’re the people, you’re the government. You’re supposed to protect us. That’s your job. If you’re putting through a bill, make sure you protect the creative thinkers, the creative artists, or you’re not going to have them.”
Ed Newton-Rex26,793 Aufrufe • vor 1 Jahr
Please watch Baroness Kidron's speech in the House of Lords yesterday. A perfect summary of the theft at the heart of AI training, and the importance of commonsense legislation that holds AI companies to account. To pull out two passages in particular: "The language of AI - scraping, training data, modules, LLMs - does not evoke the full picture of what is being done. AI corporations - many of which are seeking to entrench their existing information monopolies - are not stealing nameless data. They are stealing some of the UK's most valuable cultural and economic assets." "My Lords, whatever your party allegiance is, I ask you to make clear to the 2.4 million people who make up the creative industries, to their dependents, to the would-be creatives of the future, and to the citizens of the UK that enjoy and benefit from their creativity, that their property, their labour, is worthy of your protection - because apart from anything else, it is not ours to give away." The Lords defeated the government by 272 to 125 votes 🙌
Ed Newton-Rex21,552 Aufrufe • vor 1 Jahr
This new paper suggests AI music models are memorizing music they're trained on. Using phonetic substitutions in the lyrics, they get music that sounds strikingly similar to well-known songs. e.g. Lose Yourself, from Suno (with no genre specified by the user) 🧵 1/n
Ed Newton-Rex13,602 Aufrufe • vor 10 Monaten
Given the news that the UK government is going to propose gifting creators' work to AI companies, with the right to 'opt out', here's what I said to the Culture, Media and Sport Committee about opt-outs. tl;dr: they literally don't work, and they are hugely unfair to creators.
Ed Newton-Rex16,868 Aufrufe • vor 1 Jahr
On a recent panel, we were asked whether AI companies, if they replace jobs with AGI, will distribute their profits among the public, giving us all more time to be creative. I said no: these companies are already exploiting people. Why would that change? My full response:
Ed Newton-Rex12,143 Aufrufe • vor 11 Monaten
Another fantastic speech from James Frith MP in Parliament today standing up for the UK's creators. "The argument that restricting AI's access to copyrighted works will stifle progress and leave us trailing behind other territories is incorrect." "I have seen no economic impact assessment that states exempting music and other creative content from licensing, or introducing AI training exceptions, will boost the economy. Yes, jobs from data centers will be welcome - but they are minimal in comparison to those sustained by our creative industries."
Ed Newton-Rex11,025 Aufrufe • vor 1 Jahr
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