{"id":311559,"date":"2025-08-02T09:26:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-02T09:26:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/311559\/"},"modified":"2025-08-02T09:26:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-02T09:26:12","slug":"eus-ai-act-doesnt-do-enough-to-protect-artists-copyright-creative-groups-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/311559\/","title":{"rendered":"EU\u2019s AI Act doesn\u2019t do enough to protect artists\u2019 copyright, creative groups say"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n

As the European Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act)comes into force, groups representing artists say there are still many loopholes that need to be fixed for them to thrive in a creative world increasingly dominated by AI.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The AI Act, celebrated for being the first comprehensive legislation to regulate AI globally, is riddled with problems, these organisations say.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Groups like the European Composer and Songwriter Alliance (ECSA) and the European Grouping of Societies of Authors and Composers (GESAC) argue that it fails to protect creators whose works are used to train generative AI models.<\/p>\n

Without a clear way to opt out or get paid when tech companies use their music, books, movies, and other art to train their AI models, experts say that their work is continually at risk.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe work of our members should not be used without transparency, consent, and remuneration, and we see that the implementation of the AI Act does not give us,\u201d Marc du Moulin, ECSA\u2019s secretary general, told Euronews Next.<\/p>\n

\u2018Putting the cart before the horse\u2019<\/p>\n

The purpose of the AI Act is to make sure AI stays \u201csafe, transparent, traceable, non-discriminatory and environmentally friendly,\u201d the European Commission, the European Union\u2019s executive body, says in an explainer<\/strong><\/a> on the law.<\/p>\n

The law rates AI companies based on four levels of risk: minimal, limited, high, or unacceptable. Those in the unacceptable range are already banned, for example AIs that are manipulative or that conduct social scoring, where they rank individuals based on behaviour or economic status.<\/p>\n

Most generative AI falls into a minimal risk<\/strong><\/a> category, the Commission says. The owners of those technologies still have some requirements, like publishing summaries of the copyrighted data that companies used to train their AIs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Under the EU\u2019s copyright laws, companies are allowed to use copyrighted materials for text and data mining, like they do in AI training, unless a creator has \u201creserved their rights,\u201d Du Moulin said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Du Moulin said it’s unclear how an artist can go about opting out of their work being shared with AI companies.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis whole conversation is putting the cart before the horse. You don’t know how to opt out, but your work is already being used,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The EU\u2019s AI Code of Practice on General-Purpose (GPAI), a voluntary agreement for AI companies, asks providers to commit to a copyright policy, put in place safeguards to avoid any infringements of rights, and designate a place to receive and process complaints.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Signatories so far<\/strong><\/a> include major tech and AI companies such as Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI.<\/p>\n

AI providers have to respect copyright laws, the Commission says<\/p>\n

The additional transparency requirements under the AI Act give artists clarity on who has already used their material and when, du Moulin added, making it difficult to claim any payment for work that\u2019s already been scraped to train AI models.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cEven if the AI Act has some good legal implications, it only works for the future \u2013 it will not be retroactive,\u201d Du Moulin said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo everything which has been scraped already \u2026 it\u2019s a free lunch for generative AI providers who did not pay anything\u201d.<\/p>\n

Adriana Moscono, GESAC\u2019s general manager, said some of her members tried opting out by sending letters and emails to individual AI companies to get a license for their content, but were not successful.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was no answer,\u201d Moscono told Euronews Next. \u201cThere was absolute denial of the recognition of \u2026 the need to respect copyright and to get a license. So please, European Commission, encourage licensing\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Thomas Regnier, a Commission spokesperson, said in a statement to Euronews Next that AI providers have to respect the rights holders when they carry out text and data mining, and if there have been infringements, they can settle it privately.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The AI Act \u201cin no way affects existing EU copyright laws,\u201d Regnier continued.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mandate licence negotiations, groups ask<\/p>\n

Du Moulin and Moscono are asking the Commission to urgently clarify the rules around opting out and copyright protection in the law.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe code of practice, the template and the guidelines, they don’t provide us any capacity to improve our situation,\u201d Moscono said. \u201cThey’re not guaranteeing \u2026 a proper application of the AI Act\u201d.<\/p>\n

The advocates said the Commission could also mandate that AI companies negotiate blanket or collective licenses with the respective artist groups.<\/p>\n

Germany\u2019s Society for Musical Performing and Mechanical Reproduction Rights (GEMA) filed two copyright lawsuits against AI companies OpenAI, the parent of ChatGPT, and Suno AI, an AI music generation app.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While not directly related to the AI Act, Du Moulin says the verdict could determine to what extent AI companies could be bound to copyright laws.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Commission and the European Court of Justice, the EU\u2019s high court, have also signalled that they will review the text and data mining exemption in the copyright legislation issued in 2019, Du Moulin said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

New AI companies have to make sure they are compliant with the AI Act\u2019s regulations by 2026. That deadline extends to 2027 to companies already operating in the EU.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ADVERTISEMENT As the European Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act)comes into force, groups representing artists say there are still…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":311560,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[11855,1942,59119,2000,299,5187,1699],"class_list":{"0":"post-311559","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-ai-act","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artist","11":"tag-eu","12":"tag-europe","13":"tag-european","14":"tag-european-union"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114958459468385220","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/311560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}