Industry bodies raise AI concerns with MPs

Acting union Equity has called on the government for stronger legal protections against generative AI, while Pact has expressed concern that legislation may be ”rushed”. 

The two organisations both raised AI in their submissions to the culture, media and sport committee’s second inquiry into British film and high-end TV. 

The MPs also received calls for more regional support, while the BBC sounded the alarm over several of its commissions being “stuck in funding limbo”. 

The HETV inquiry into support for the sector was launched under the previous CMS committee but had to be cut short due to the general election, and the follow-up inquiry was launched in October under the new government and new-look committee.   

Equity outlined its concerns of how AI is being trained on the works of its members without their consent or compensation.  

“Unethical models built on dirty data cannot become the norm. Enforcement and strengthening of the legal framework will allow the industry to move forward with ethical AI frameworks, delivered via collective bargaining,” it wrote.  

The union detailed its concerns about reports that the government is considering introducing a Text and Datain Mining Exception (TDM) with an opt-out for rightsholders from the exception.  

Equity argued that a TDM would provide a “legal loophole” for data mining systems to copy protected works for the purpose of extracting and analysing their data, and would allow gen AI companies to use copyright-protected works to develop their foundational AI models, without license or compensation.  

Instead, it suggested the government require operators of internet crawlers and general purpose AI models to comply with UK copyright law, even if the training takes place in another country, and that these operators must be transparent about the identity and purpose of their tools, as well as about the copyrighted works they have scraped.  

“The success of the UK creative industries rests on decades of protected copyright and intellectual property development. A breach of this framework via a TDM could impact inward investment and is highly likely to undermine the growth-potential of our industries, which are now recognised in the government’s Industrial Strategy 2035 White Paper,” stated the submission from Equity. 

Pact also raised the issue of AI, with a warning over the legislation around the relationship between IP rights and generative AI.

“Given the speed at which the technology is operating Pact is concerned that legislation may be rushed, and policies that allow a broad text data mining exception would make rightsholders’ positions more precarious than they already are… Instead, policy levers to encourage licensing solutions to be sought by AI developers should be incentivised,” it said. 

Bad Wolf and Pact urge regional focus 

In another submission, Jane Tranter’s Wales-based indie Bad Wolf urged the government to focus on supporting the industry outside of London, lobbying for an increased tax credit for HETV made in the regions and nations.  

The indie, which is responsible for BBC1’s Industry and Doctor Who, has also added its voice to those calling for Ofcom’s current guidance on regional production definitions to be reviewed in order to “favour production companies with an HQ in a region or nation”.  

The issue has been the subject much debate this month, with the BBC embroiled in a row over whether regional productions like The Traitors should qualify as such being largely made by of London-based staff.  

Meanwhile, Pact cautioned that the supply of nations and regions-based indies will be negatively impacted by the PSBs “renewed focus” on “high impact, high value” commissions to drive streaming and digital advertising revenue.  

The middle market drop-off has previously been flagged as a significant area of concern by the indie body, which warned it will impact the diversity of UK content.  

“Pact is concerned that the shift in commissioning strategy, along with wider economic pressures, will impact on the diversity of supply of indies, particularly hitting those in the nations and regions and diverse-led indies,” it said. 

This has made the outlook for the sector difficult, and we’re concerned that the cultural diversity of the sector may be permanently damaged.” 

Streamers and US studios focus on skills spend

Elsewhere, inward investors to the UK creative industry, including streaming majors and US studios, have called on government to focus on how training and workforce development spend is being invested into the ecosystem, rather than focusing on a “specific percentage or arbitrary number,” as described by Monica Ariño, Amazon’s UK director of public policy. 

Both Amazon and Netflix confirmed their expenditure on skills and workforce development exceeded the 1% of production budgets recommended by the 2022 BFI Skills Review, while Parramount and NBCUniversal did not reveal figures due to commercial sensitivity.  

The companies noted their skills investment bettered the BFI figure through confirmation by Georgia Brown’s screen sector Skills Task Force, which showed £100m had been injected into the sector each year.  

Ariño wrote that Amazon would be “increasing our total spending on skills and workforce development initiatives commensurate with our wider investment in the UK”. 

“This target should be measured over the long term, to provide the flexibility necessary for studios to take the fast decisions on productions that will keep the UK at the forefront of global growth of the screen sector,” she added. 

“The Taskforce also highlighted the importance of scrutinising how the industry is investing, not just how much. We would urge the committee to consider the same. 

“We believe the current policy focus on skills should be about industry working in partnership with parliament and government to ensure that the money being spent is being invested in the right way; rather than focusing on a specific percentage or arbitrary number.” 

Mitchell Simmons, vice-president of public policy and government affairs EMEA, stated: “Many in our sector believed the subsequent focus on the 1% oversimplified the challenges facing the sector to a matter of monetary spend and not how industry should better coordinate its investment in training to create the most impact. 

“We continue to ensure that where possible we leverage our investment to benefit the sector as a whole - either through working with expert third-party bodies in our sector, or directly engaging with our production partners to improve access and skills development.” 

He added that through Channel 5’s strategy to “significantly increase its drama output”, the company was putting in foundations for greater investment to the HETV world. 

“[This strategy] has created a new pipeline for talent development that will directly support future inward investment to the UK,” he said.  

Gidon Freeman, senior vice-president, government and regulatory affairs at NBCU International, concurred, noting the “debate has since moved on from discussing monetary value to how best to deliver a comprehensive skills strategy for the sector” and welcomed government plans to reform the Apprenticeship Levy. 

“The distinctive characteristics of the creative industries – particularly the prevalence of freelancers – mean that the sector often struggles to meet the current levy’s requirements,” he added. “Expanding its scope so that it covers freelancers that move flexibly between productions would be a major improvement.”