Nick Clegg: Artists’ demands over copyright are unworkable - The former Meta executive claims that a law requiring tech companies to ask permission to train AI on copyrighted work would ‘kill’ the industry

Sir Nick Clegg said it was “not unreasonable” for artists to want to be able to opt out of their work being used to train AI
DAVID MCHUGH FOR THE TIMES

Making technology companies ask artists’ permission before they scrape copyrighted content will “basically kill the AI industry in this country overnight,” Sir Nick Clegg has said.

The former deputy prime minister, who spent almost seven years working for the social media giant Meta, sided with technology companies when asked on Thursday about the clash over AI copyright laws.

He was speaking as MPs voted against proposals that would have allowed copyright holders to see when their work had been used and by whom.

Leading figures across the creative industries, including Sir Elton John and Sir Paul McCartney, have urged the government not to “give our work away” at the behest of big tech, warning that the plans risk destroying the livelihoods of 2.5 million people who work in the UK’s creative sector.

However, Clegg said that their demands to make technology companies ask permission before using copyrighted work were unworkable and “implausible” because AI systems are already training on vast amounts of data. He said: “It’s out there already.”

Clegg defended technology companies at an event to promote his book How to Save the Internet, which will be released in September.

Speaking at the Charleston Festival, held at the East Sussex farmhouse made famous by the artist Vanessa Bell and the early 20th-century creatives known as the Bloomsbury Group, Clegg claimed that artificial intelligence was already able to “create” its own art.

“You can already create art of a sort [using AI], whether it’s a poem, a ditty, an essay, a short story, a picture. You can already do that,” he said

Referring to the question of whether “artists should be able to withhold their content from the AI models that are being trained,” he said: “On the one hand, yeah, I think it seems to me as a matter of natural justice, to say to people that they should be able to opt out of having their creativity, their products, what they’ve worked on indefinitely modelled. That seems to me to be not unreasonable to opt out.”

However, he added, “I think the creative community wants to go a step further. Quite a lot of voices say ‘you can only train on my content, [if you] first ask’. And I have to say that strikes me as somewhat implausible because these systems train on vast amounts of data.

“I just don’t know how you go around, asking everyone first. I just don’t see how that would work. And by the way if you did it in Britain and no one else did it, you would basically kill the AI industry in this country overnight.

“So, I think people should have clear, easy to use ways of saying, no, I don’t. I want out of this. But I think expecting the industry, technologically or otherwise, to preemptively ask before they even start training — I just don’t see. I’m afraid that just collides with the physics of the technology itself.”

Parliament heard on Thursday how both sectors needed to succeed to grow Britain’s economy. MPs voted 195 to 124, majority 71, to disagree with Baroness Kidron’s transparency amendment to the Data (Use and Access) Bill.

Clegg stepped down from his job at Meta earlier this year, after seven years in Silicon Valley. He resigned from his role as president of global affairs just weeks before President Trump’s return to the White House.

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[Diana Moon Glampers]

If you use IP without any regard for paying artists, etc., I think that should be fine, IF you're only using it to make an open-source model. You could even still charge for using it, if you're providing the compute resources, but it should be forkable and you should be able to use it on your own compute resources for free if you want.

 

[Weeby Catto]

People are so fixated with "artist" in the argument, but always forget it's not about them.

So artworks are up for grabs for corpo to scrape for data because they are "redditors" or whatever you like to call them to justify your points, but what about your face, your voice etc? Why should they ask your permission for those?

If they can obtain copyright for AI produced materials, should they be able to sue you when you finally produce your own works using your own likeness? Especially if they produce it first?

Realistically they can just wait for whatever you produce and throw it inside their ai software and churn it out again, your music, photos, writings artworks etc. How are you going to sue them if they can throw any liability just to the ai? And what happens when they sue back, their ai copyrighted work against yours?

The truth about whole copyright debacle is all about "being able to fully produce a full work with ai and owning that copyright."
If they can take any of your work/data for learning and churn out works that can be copyrighted, then they can essentially own copyright tp all of your creations, and you can do nothing about it.

That's why artists and what not are so worked up about their own work being scraped for training without permissions.

 

[X Prime]

No they aren't. Most modern digital artists have not and are almost certainly mentally incapable of thinking that far. The vast majority are just worked up because they aren't special anymore.

 

[browserbowser]

It's property, you fucking faggot; it's not a matter of what you deem to be reasonable.

The entire argument hinges on the batshit insane notion that it's not fair use to essentially remix content or make derivative works, and that an AI doing it somehow makes it non-fair use.

Even though the argument that the reason an AI doing it renders it not a valid form of fair use is not much different than saying that a collage isn't a valid form of fair-use reuse of content because the images you're using aren't capable of arranging themselves meaningfully without your help.

Don't defend these retards. They're essentially asking to make copyright 10x stronger over the dumbest shit and because they have a seething hatred for the fact that AI will replace them first, not last.

but what about your face, your voice etc? Why should they ask your permission for those?

If they can obtain copyright for AI produced materials, should they be able to sue you when you finally produce your own works using your own likeness? Especially if they produce it first?

Pretty sure people other than yourself can't legally use your likeness without permission first.

And also, this isn't something that is somehow magically a new problem just because of AI. Unless you seriously believe the capacity to 'steal someone's likeness' only appeared with the rise of LLM tech.

 

[X Prime]

they have a seething hatred for the fact that AI will replace them first, not last.

Bingo. That's why such types have had to make up unfalsifiable arguments like the concept of "soul" in art, only to infamously get owned by claiming a child scribbling of Sonic the Hedgehog had soul up until the moment it was revealed it was AI generated.

It's like how sommeliers apparently actually suck at their jobs.

 

[deleuzeon]

Don't defend these retards. They're essentially asking to make copyright 10x stronger over the dumbest shit and because they have a seething hatred for the fact that AI will replace them first, not last.

No, I think they just want corporations to have to respect the copyright on the work they dump thousands of hours into, just like how everyone else is forced to respect the copyrighted works of big corporations like Disney, Nintendo, etc.

Faggots like Clegg believe in an asymmetric situation where you must respect the corporation's property and it doesn't have to respect yours at all

 

[Google.com]

ill “basically kill the AI industry in this country overnight,

Calm down, I already supported it when you said a Facebook executive didn't like it.

 

[browserbowser]

No, I think they just want corporations to have to respect the copyright on the work they dump thousands of hours into,

The restrictions they want to put on AI would effectively allow for any and all fair use/derivatives to be claimed.

If you want that, cool, but be honest about it.

 

[𖦹Junkpop𖦹]

If you threaten this, you should be taken out like the supposed Luddites were.

I hope you’re singing the same tune when everything is overtaken by jeets and robots and you can’t earn a single dime. Or when you’re working in a sweatshop. People will call me retarded now but the wealth gap is going to get bigger and bigger. There’s no way any of these corporations are gonna allow UBI either.

 

[X Prime]

If you want that, cool, but be honest about it.

The kind of people who kvetch about AI are dishonest most of the time.

Kazuma Kaneko, demon artist of Shin Megami Tensei, recently trained an LLM on his own art for use on a gacha game named Tsukuyomi: The Divine Hunter. It's integrated into the story as the False God Okami, who steals the art of the actual god that possesses a character called Painter K to generate random card art of demons and such. If a given Okami output is popular enough, Kaneko takes it, refines it, and calls it a Prime Card.

Even this is not enough for these types.

 

[Hitman One]

I don't know what the answer is but I do know that Nick Clegg should be kept in a cage and poked with sticks.

 

[Milkshake Sniffer]

I hope you’re singing the same tune when everything is overtaken by jeets and robots and you can’t earn a single dime. Or when you’re working in a sweatshop. People will call me retarded now but the wealth gap is going to get bigger and bigger. There’s no way any of these corporations are gonna allow UBI either.

You're absolutely right. Let's go and smash those infernal machines. We can start with those damnable Spinning Jennies, threshing machines and stocking frames. Don't forget your clogs. Dropping them into the machinery works really well. That Ned Ludd really does talk sense.

 

[𖦹Junkpop𖦹]

That Ned Ludd really does talk sense.

Oh sorry let me go get my government mandated brain chip and my daily serving of goy slop.

 

[browserbowser]

People will call me retarded now but the wealth gap is going to get bigger and bigger. There’s no way any of these corporations are gonna allow UBI either.

Oh sorry let me go get my government mandated brain chip and my daily serving of goy slop.

You genuinely have no Earthly idea what the hell you're talking about.

And let's be clear here this is a tantrum thrown over the notion that remixes, derivatives, and the like are somehow not fair use because they were ran through a process better, faster, and cleaner than photoshop, gimp, whatever.

This is all retarded.

 

[Argos]

He says that like it's a bad thing.

 

[𖦹Junkpop𖦹]

You genuinely have no Earthly idea what the hell you're talking about.

I absolutely do you’re the one who seems blind. Let me guess, you hate the ccp but hate [x group] so you’re fine with that type of surveillance and censorship everywhere. Have fun owning nothing and knowing nothing. Because that’s where we’re headed. Also hope you have a great time sleeping at the factory like the Chinese people over seas do.

 

[browserbowser]

I absolutely do you’re the one who seems blind. Let me guess, you hate the ccp but hate [x group] so you’re fine with that type of surveillance and censorship everywhere. Have fun owning nothing and knowing nothing. Because that’s where we’re headed.

This is about whether or not it's fair use to have what is essentially a recompiling entity do a re-arrangement of intellectual property to make what in every other context would be a fair-use derivative work if it were done slower and shittier by a human with no automated processes between them and the output.

Which is retarded because then one wonders if any assistive tool in the process of making a derivative fair-use work makes the claim of fair-use null and void. Does having spellcheck in Word make your satirical work non-valid under fair-use if it can be identified clearly enough what the original work you're satirizing is? Do automatic functions in equalizers and the like in audio editing software make remixes of popular songs no longer fair-use? Etc.

If you were merely retarded I'd pity you. But you're worse than that, you're an arrogant, bellicose retard. Your response is a non-sequitur such that the only way I can even respond to it is to treat it as this:

<autistic gibbering noises>

because that's what it amounts to, truly.

Do yourself and humanity a favor and stop treating yourself as if you could find your ass with both hands because you clearly aren't capable enough mentally to be trusted even with that. Go fucking read, learn something. Please, genuinely for the love of God go find a way through which you can be less ignorant and less arrogant in your ignorance.

 

[𖦹Junkpop𖦹]

This is about whether or not it's fair use to have what is essentially a recompiling entity do a re-arrangement of intellectual property to make what in every other context would be a fair-use derivative work if it were done slower and shittier by a human with no automated processes between them and the output.

Which is retarded because then one wonders if any assistive tool in the process of making a derivative fair-use work makes the claim of fair-use null and void. Does having spellcheck in Word make your satirical work non-valid under fair-use if it can be identified clearly enough what the original work you're satirizing is? Do automatic functions in equalizers and the like in audio editing software make remixes of popular songs no longer fair-use? Etc.

If you were merely retarded I'd pity you. But you're worse than that, you're an arrogant, bellicose retard. Your response is a non-sequitur such that the only way I can even respond to it is to treat it as this:

because that's what it amounts to, truly.

Do yourself and humanity a favor and stop treating yourself as if you could find your ass with both hands because you clearly aren't capable enough mentally to be trusted even with that. Go fucking read, learn something. Please, genuinely for the love of God go find a way through which you can be less ignorant and less arrogant in your ignorance.

lmafo you know it’s true that’s why you’re getting so snappy about it. It’s not arrogance at all. Once again, hope you’re ready to start sleeping at the factory. Do yourself a favor and open your eyes before it’s too damn late.

 

[browserbowser]

lmafo

Lmafo indeed my low-functioning schizophrenic friend.

 

[𖦹Junkpop𖦹]

-I love slobbering on goy cock and owning nothing-

Just wait and see. It’ll come for your ass.