There’s no such thing as IP or copyright anymore, enthused the gleeful young man at a local seminar to explain the benefits of AI to businesses.
Baseball cap back-to-front throughout, tech geared up for Matrix fakery, he drove a coach and horses through Queen Anne’s 1710 law to protect London publishers from literary piracy.
A Times leader today has this to say:
“For more than three centuries, writers of novels, scripts, music and factual reports, as well as visual artists and others, have relied on the protection afforded by copyright to prevent the greedy and the unscrupulous from stealing their work and profiting thereby. This protection still forms the bedrock of Britain’s thriving creative sector, worth more than £120 billion a year. Now, however, this vital industry is facing the threat of its output being pillaged by tech companies that want to pay nothing for its use.”
The UK Labour government is leaning towards sanctioning such an appalling betrayal of creative enterprise that includes writers, artists, designers, photographers, newspapers, songwriters, musicians et al. The reason? They want big tech operating its AI revolution in the UK.
Two knights of the realm, big hitters Paul McCartney and Elton John, have joined the campaign to lobby for greater copyright protection. As it stands, the Data (Use & Access) Bill now going through Parliament will sell all creatives down the river. My own union, the Society of Authors, is doing a fantastic job of making our voice heard.
As it happens, all of my books have been stolen without due recompense for my years of work, along with thousands of others, and can now be used to train Meta’s own AI.
Tom, Dick or Harry can now press a button and produce a full novel without any creative effort. That’s fraud.
Will it stop me writing? Of course not. Because I love crafting historical fiction. But it would be nice to be paid a groat or six for all the blood, sweat and tears (which I’m pleased to report my legit publisher does).
I interrupted the young man mentioned at the beginning of this article and asked him what he thought about this theft of mine and others’ work. I’d be better off getting a shovel and seeking work digging gardens, was his cynical reply.
Basically, his summary was: “Tough”.
MAKE A POINT
These books are available for the price of of a coffee, maybe a lot less by the time this reaches you!
Libertas – ‘A fast-moving tale of survival’ (Douglas Jackson)
Sea of Flames – ‘Murder, blood and political intrigue’ (Ali Tosh)
Vipers of Rome – ‘A true storyteller’ (Lord Cormack)
Line in the Sand – ‘Full of scholarship and imagination’ (Peter Tonkin)
The Ring – All proceeds go to The Reading Agency charity.
How in any universe can this be ok? Or something we just have to live with? And how rude.