A rare sign of unity in a battle worth fighting for
Opinion
The entire newspaper sector — along with the wider creative industry — has come together to fight for proper copyright. Don’t let history repeat itself.
Tuesday’s national newspaper front pages, and many regionals as well, were a sight to behold.
In a rare manifestation of unity — the dog-does-not-eat-dog mantra has long been history — the entire newspaper industry came together to fight against what it believes is government plans to give the AI billionaires a free hit on copyright.
The campaign, launched by the News Media Association, was aligned with the entire UK creative sector, which is calculated to contribute £126bn to the economy every year.
So if the government is looking for growth, then the creative economy is one of the reasonable places to look in order to find it — and it’s something that could too easily be destroyed.
Meanwhile, the music industry came in with its own creative attack: 1,000 musicians, including Annie Lennox and Kate Bush, produced a “silent” album to protest against the government’s copyright plans.
Lessons from social media
Despite falling print sales, such a combined newspaper campaign can still make a dramatic impact, particularly when it is amplified on television and through the support of Sir Paul McCartney on radio.
It helps that the artwork is good, in Italian football blue. Within the slogan, “Make it Fair”, the “AI” of “fair” is highlighted in white, with the meaty strapline allegation: “The government is siding with big tech over British creativity.”
The allegation is a serious one, because the media industries are still suffering to this day from an underestimation of social media and the effect it has had on traditional media.
That early disadvantage has never been corrected and the California high tech billionaires are still able to have the advantages of being publishers while accepting few of the responsibilities involved.
Most serious of all, there is still an imbalance between what the social media giants gain from the expensive intellectual property created by the media and what those creators receive.
Throwing British creativity under the bus
It is understandable that the government should want the UK to take advantage of the latest AI technology.
It would, however, be a tragedy if history was allowed to repeat itself and the government were to bend the knee to the latest wave of tech billionaires, throwing British creative industries under the bus in the process.
As the campaign says: “The government is looking to change the law to favour big tech platforms so that they can use British creative content to power their AI models without our permission or payment. Let’s protect the creative industries. It’s only fair.”
Surprisingly, a Labour government is suggesting weakening copyright laws so that tech businesses can use the raw material created by the creative industries without the need for either permission or payment, unless the copyright owner opts out.
All they will get in return is greater transparency about the data used to create the new software.
That sounds like the media equivalent of US president Donald Trump imposing all that Russian president Vladimir Putin wants on Ukraine without getting anything in return.
Legal right
The experience of recent decades is that embracing a new technological wild west, without proper rules, regulations or indeed the protection of strong copyright laws that have operated for more than 300 years, is not a great idea.
We must enjoy this rare sign of media unity while we may as the government consultation comes to an end.
As The Times said: “Talk may be cheap but words and music are not.” And the creators and publishers of copyright material have the legal right to decide who has access to it and on what terms.
“This must remain so in the era of artificial intelligence, in which the over-mighty global tech giants are eager to hoover up content for free to boost the quality of their output,” the paper said in its editorial.
The Daily Mail, which can be a powerful campaigner when it chooses an appropriate target, is right behind this one with the slogan: “Our creative genius leads the world. Don’t let Big Tech steal it.”
Different approaches
The present unity should be pursued and maintained, even though there are signs of different approaches.
Some publishers will do deals with AI groups and they should be free to do so, but such negotiations should be undertaken from a position of strength and that can only come from the power of copyright.
The New York Times is having none of it, although it is unclear what will happen there, given that most of the social media and AI giants seem to be in Trump’s back pocket.
NYT, the New York Daily News and the Center for Investigative Reporting are in a combined legal case against OpenAI, owner of ChatGPT, and Microsoft, its financial backer.
Their argument is that the data that powers ChatGPT has been helped by millions of copyrighted works that, the publishers argue, has been taken without permission or payment.
The legal battle may have a long way to go and potentially involve large sums in compensation.
Others have taken a very different view. News Corp, Vox Media and the Associated Press, now suing the Trump administration for banning its reporters from the White House and Air Force One, have done deals with OpenAI.
Sup with a very long spoon
In the UK, earlier this month The Guardian signed a deal with OpenAI under which it will get compensation for use of its journalism and be properly credited on its platform. OpenAI will also be able to use attributed short summaries and article extracts.
The Guardian will in turn also be able to use the AI technology to create new products.
However, when Press Gazette asked ChatGPT to summarise that day’s news from The Guardian, it produced a 260-word bullet point summary of stories without providing any link back to The Guardian.
It goes without saying that any publications collaborating with the emerging AI titans should sup with a very long spoon and be very careful about the detail of such agreements.
Above all, they should be able to negotiate from a position of strength — and that should never involve a Trump-like surrender of copyright laws.
Raymond Snoddy is a media consultant, national newspaper columnist and former presenter of NewsWatch on BBC News. He writes for The Media Leader on Wednesdays — bookmark his column here.