The UK government proposes that AI companies can use copyrighted material to train the models, unless the creative professional and companies opt out of this process. This is a point of contention between the AI companies and the creative people.

The UK copyright Law will make an exception in case of the AI companies to use copyright material to train the models. At the same time, writers, artists and composers will be allowed to ‘reserve their rights’ –the rights not to an bow their work to be used in AI training process or to ask for a license fee to do so.

This proposal offers a win-win situation for both the sides. It provides greater control to creators and right holders. It may lead to more licensing of content. It will open up a new revanue stream for the creators. The unlicensed use of creative work for AI model is an unjust threat to creators’ llivelihoods.

The AI developers may be required to indicate the sourcing of their content to train the models. The new measures would have to be accessible and effective before being adopted.

Another issue is whether the status of the models which have already been deployed, such as ChatGPT and Gemini. The government is seeking views on this.

Another issue is the US-style ‘right of personality’. It protects celebrities from having their voice or likeness replicated by AI without permission. Scarlett Johans Son’s voice was cloned in a voice assistant by OpenAI and that was paused after users endorsed the similarity.