Responding to the Government’s AI Opportunities Action Plan released today (13 January), Equity calls for rights and ethical data use to be at the heart of the approach to ‘turbocharge’ AI adoption and warns Government not to enable big tech against artists and the creative industries.
We represent 50,000 artists, performers and creative practitioners, many of whom have had their data scraped by generative artificial intelligence (GAI) systems and unknowingly had their past performances used to train GAI models. Actors’ and artists' voice, movement, likeness and performances are their living. Current GDPR and copyright regulations are a strong starting point for informed, ethical data use within AI. We are calling for strengthened rights for performers and for government to abandon its current opt-out approach in relation to data mining.
AI can be a powerful positive force but protections must be in place, and creative workers and their trade unions must be part of policy making and future licensing schemes.
Paul W Fleming, Equity General Secretary
Paul W Fleming, Equity General Secretary, said: “Government is effectively giving the green light to Big Tech to further line their pockets at the expense of our world-leading creative industries. This is an industry that has largely disregarded UK laws and carried out intellectual property theft on an industrial scale.
“Instead of moving forward with their flawed opt-out scheme, we need the government to back an effective licensing market based on UK copyright laws and strengthened performers’ rights. This would enable both industries to flourish.
“We have copyright regulations and GDPR which should be used to protect rightsholders and individuals, and the UK government has a legal and ethical responsibility to ensure that the creation and use of AI tools are built on legally compliant data.
“AI can be a powerful positive force but protections must be in place, and creative workers and their trade unions must be part of policy making and future licensing schemes.”
Equity has seen many examples of AI having devastating impacts on performers unless the right protections and restrictions are in place. See for example the story of an Equity member whose AI avatar was used against his will in a political social media campaign.
Equity is consulting its members in advance of submitting a response to the government’s AI consultation, one that will pursue an expansion of performers’ rights and protections and guard against the free exploitation of their work by big tech firms.
Find out more about Equity’s campaign to Stop AI Stealing the Show
