As Britain stands on the edge of a knife, ready to turbocharge the AI sector and become a global leader, will this see the potential sacrifice of creatives and the UK golden copyright standard?

Yesterday Dame Caroline Dinenage MP DBE, Chairman of the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, spoke in her capacity as a Member of Parliament in the House of Commons to raise concern with the Secretary of State for the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology, Peter Kyle MP about the worrying concerns of the sacrifice of the UK’s golden content and copyright protection standards relating to work done by British creatives. The response from the Secretary of State did not provide confidence to the concerns put to him.

This should be a cause for concern for anyone in the creative industries. AI doesn’t "create" in the traditional sense—it recycles. It takes existing works, reuses them, and produces something that, while new on the surface, is built from the labor of others. And as it continues to evolve, it’s threatening to push creative professionals out of their own industries.

When it comes to copyright, content ownership, and fair compensation, we may find these concepts increasingly irrelevant if we continue to prioritise AI innovation over protecting human creators.

Consider the cameraman who has spent decades mastering cinematography, or the music producer who dedicates hours each week to perfecting a music production or learning the intricacies of programming. These are the people who are already being undermined by big tech companies that pay artists a fraction of what their work is worth—while profiting immensely from their content.

Take the example of bands that have broken up but are now seeing unauthorised "bootleg" versions of albums released under their name. These recordings aren't actually the band members themselves, but AI-generated content that bears an uncanny resemblance. In Eastern Europe, these kinds of bootlegs are widespread.

For instance, the Russian band t.A.T.u, who haven’t recorded together since 2014, reunited for a single performance in Belarus in 2022. Soon after, super-fans started experimenting with AI to create entire albums that mimicked the sound of the original duo. These AI-generated songs, complete with AI-produced vocals and instrumentation, sound so similar to the real-life voices of Lena and Julia that many listeners can’t tell the difference. Fans even took leaked demo versions of their music and used AI to turn them into polished, professional tracks—fooling people into thinking new, original content had been released. But here's the key point: these are all deep-fakes created by AI. They infringe on copyright by using the demos and unreleased songs without consent, and they violate the personal agency of the artists, who are being used without their knowledge or approval.

What's worse is that these AI-created works are being traded, sold, and distributed on white-label vinyl, CDs and online platforms. Just like the Napster era, the artists see none of the revenue generated from the use of their likeness or their music. Their creations are out there, profiting someone else, with no compensation for the creators who made it all possible.

It’s encouraging to see leaders like Dame Caroline Dinenage MP DBE taking a stand against such practices. The industry needs stronger protections for creators, or we risk allowing AI to undermine the value of human creativity altogether.

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