Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Artificial intelligence myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.Thousands of British musicians, artists, authors and journalists have joined a wave of protests against government proposals that could make it easier for tech companies to use their work to train artificial intelligence models. On Tuesday, the government will close a consultation into plans for the future of copyright and AI, which suggests a so-called “rights reservation” system where every company, artist or author would need to opt out of their work being utilised and copied by tech groups.Creative sector and media groups are responding with an industry campaign on Tuesday called “Make it Fair”, as part of a co-ordinated wave of protests planned to highlight the dangers of this approach. National daily and regional publications, including The Guardian and The Times, will run the same cover “wrap” across their print newspapers and websites. Weekly titles will run the campaign throughout the week. The campaign accuses the government of siding with big US tech companies over the UK’s creative industries, posing an “existential threat” from AI models. More than 1,000 musicians, including Kate Bush, Damon Albarn, The Clash and Hans Zimmer, are also set to release a “silent” album titled Is This What We Want? The group wants to show that the proposals risk undermining the UK’s music industry by featuring recordings of empty studios and performance spaces.In a statement, the musicians said the government’s proposed changes reverse the principle of copyright law, arguing an opt-out model is difficult to enforce, and places burdens and costs on artists.Separately, artists such as Paul McCartney and Elton John have argued against the government proposals, while hundreds of other creatives, including bestselling authors Mark Haddon and Michael Rosen, last week signed a letter expressing their opposition. The extent of the anger over the proposals highlights the difficulties facing the government in seeking to boost its tech, and specifically AI, industries. Tech companies want to mine the internet freely to train algorithms, while creative industries want them to be more transparent about how their models are created and to strike licence fees to use their work. Media executives worry that government proposals could lead to the use of copyrighted material and have raised concerns that ministers are being won over by deep-pocketed tech companies.Sir Keir Starmer’s lead adviser on AI, Matt Clifford, has faced questions over whether his investments in AI companies serve as a conflict of interest in the advice he offers relating to the copyright regime. The venture capitalist has said there are robust processes in place to ensure he does not benefit financially from decisions he helps shape, and has pointed out that the creative industry has a very powerful lobby.Clifford has divested from one of the UK’s most successful AI companies, Faculty AI, to avoid any allegations of a conflict — a process that he set in motion at the start of the year.A government figure said that US AI companies already train and release models in the US using British copyrighted material. They added that if the UK opted for a more restrictive regime — such as an opt-in model — it would risk “falling for the worst of all worlds where we have neither protected the creative industries nor got a domestic AI industry”.TechUK, which represents the UK’s tech industry, said in its submission that AI was a key driver of economic growth, and a version of an opt-out mechanism “could be a workable compromise if implementation challenges, such as scalable, machine-readable opt-outs, are addressed”.
