Editorial: Artificial Intelligence should not be allowed to steal original content from newspapers and other creative industries

​The UK’s creative industries, including newspapers, today are launching a campaign to highlight how their content is at risk of being given away for free to Artificial Intelligence firms. A Labour government consultation seeking views on weakening copyright law closes today.

You will see the ‘Make it Fair’ campaign logo on our front page and on page two. It is being used by other newspapers around the nation today to raise awareness among the British public about the existential threat posed to such creative work from what are known as generative AI models. These scrape creative content from the internet without permission, acknowledgement, and critically, without payment.

The impact on creative businesses, including music, and on individuals – who collectively generate over £120 billion a year towards the UK economy – will be devastating if this continues unchecked.

Launching the campaign today, Owen Meredith, head of News Media Association, says “gold-standard copyright laws in the UK” have supported some of the world’s greatest creators – artists, authors, journalists, singers and scriptwriters.

He adds: “And for a healthy democratic society, copyright is fundamental to publishers’ ability to invest in trusted quality journalism. The only thing which needs affirming is that these laws also apply to AI, and transparency requirements should be introduced to allow creators to understand when their content is being used. Instead, the government proposes to weaken the law and essentially make it legal to steal content. There will be no AI innovation without the high-quality content that is the ... fuel for AI models.”

Newspapers are already under threat from free online news such as from the BBC. At the News Letter, the oldest English language daily title in the world, we welcome the potential of AI but also back fair payment for original work.