Received from: Equity, Writers’ Guild of Great Britain
Composing motion 64 plus amendment and motion 65 plus amendment
Congress notes that:
i. AI tools to create a digital replica of an individual’s likeness are now widely available
ii. many performers, particularly voice artists, have found that after a recording session for a particular purpose, their voice has been cloned and used for other commercial purposes without consent or pay
iii. unauthorised digital replicas undermine performers’ income and personal autonomy and pose a threat to the sustainability of careers in performance
iv. current rights, such as those under UK GDPR and intellectual property, are uncertain and patchy on how they apply in this context and do not provide adequate protection
v. women, in particular, may be subject to degrading or misleading ‘deepfakes’ of their likeness disseminated online
vi. writers in the UK are seeing the industrial-scale theft of their work to train large language models, in breach of existing copyright law
vii. many writers rely on supplementary work to boost their income, which is notoriously precarious, and are seeing both writing and non-writing jobs being replaced by AI
viii. the government has said it is committed to protecting copyright and has put the creative industries at the heart of its growth strategy, yet we are still waiting for concrete action, leading many to believe that the government is siding with big tech over creators.
Therefore, Congress calls on the TUC to:
a. lobby the government to introduce personality rights to give performers a clear route to control and license digital replicas within agreed limits, and to give all individuals a clear right to object to a harmful digital replica
b. new rights should be enforceable via mechanisms familiar to copyright enforcement, such as notice-and-takedown and compensation for commercial uses
c. support licensing for any new rights via existing collective bargaining mechanisms
d. call on government to introduce urgent regulation (including transparency measures), to enforce and strengthen existing UK copyright legislation, and to protect jobs in the creative industries in an age of AI
e. ensure that any new rights support the ability of news gatherers to take photographs and video for the purposes of reporting, legitimate public scrutiny and the ethical documenting of everyday life
f. ensure that creative workers, including journalists, are compensated for the use of their work in ‘training’ AI systems
g. ensure that future ‘training’ use is permitted only where the creative worker has granted permission (‘opted in’).
Mover: Equity
Seconder: Writers’ Guild of Great Britain
Supported by: National Union of Journalists