The UK performing arts are the latest British creative sector to warn the government of loose regulations around the use of copyrighted creative material to train AI models.
Over 30 leaders in Britain’s performing arts have signed a statement urging the government to support the creative community of dance, drama, music and opera, the Guardian first reported.
Amongst signatories are heads at the National Theatre, Opera North, Royal Shakespeare Company, and Royal Albert Hall.
The performing arts leaders asked for the government to give creatives automatic rights to their works as opposed to the current policy which states creative work will automatically be used to train AI models unless creatives ‘opt out’.
The UK performing arts is the latest in a long series of industry figures across music and entertainment to speak out against the government’s ‘opt out’ policy – which creatives say the rule puts barriers between creatives being able to protect their work.
Generative AI tools, like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, use vast amounts of data to train on – the better quality data going into AI models, the better the technology becomes.
The statement comes roughly three weeks after the ‘Make It Fair’ campaign launched by The Creative Rights in AI Coalition, which saw major UK newspapers – including the Daily Mail and the Guardian – running identical covers with the ‘Make It Fair’ logo in protest of unregulated use of creative work by AI models.
On the same day (February 25), over 1000 music artists, including Kate Bush and Annie Lenox, released a silent album titled ‘Is this what we want?’ in protest of the copyright policy.
A barrage of those in the creative community – including writers, actors, musicians, and singers – have called out against the free use of creative works to train AI models – this has resulted in numerous petitions and statements from tens-of-thousands of signatories.
Julian Moore, Thom Yorke, Tom Holland and Stephen Fry are all amongst celebrities who have called out against this unlicensed use of creative work, with many stating this work is the backbone of society and threatens the livelihood of the region’s creative people.
