UK Music Chief Executive Jamie Njoku-Goodwin has welcomed Intellectual Property Minister George Freeman’s announcement that he plans to scrap Government proposals of broad copyright exception for text and data mining purposes.
In 2022, the government set out the possibility of a copyright law amendment which would enable artificial intelligence developers to use copyright protected works without the permission of creators and rightsholders. The move faced backlash across the music sector, with warnings of a ‘catastrophic’ impact on the business.
Among the key concerns was that the proposals could undermine the UK’s strong copyright framework and damage the economic power of creators and rightsholders. After months of campaigning from UK Music members, Intellectual Property Minister George Freeman said he and the Minister of State for Media, Data, and Digital Infrastructure Julia Lopez felt that the proposals were not correct and that they would ‘not be proceeding with these.’
‘We are looking to stop them and to return to office to have a rather deeper conversation with the APPG who I met yesterday, with experts in both Houses and with the industry,’ he said.
Commenting on the announcement, Jamie Njoku-Goodwin said, ‘UK Music warmly welcomes the minister’s decision to scrap plans for a catastrophic blanket copyright exception.’
‘The whole music industry has been united in its opposition to these proposals, which would have paved the way for music laundering and opened up our brilliant creators and rights holders to gross exploitation.’
‘We are delighted to see the back of a policy that risked irreparable damage to the global success story that is the UK music industry. We now look forward to working with the Government to ensure any future plans are evidence-based and allow artificial intelligence and our world-leading creative industries to grow in tandem.’
