• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, February 27, 2025

A so-called consultation by the UK government would allow an exemption to copyright law for “text and data mining” (TDM) unless the publishers opt out.

This proposal, which would create a gap in copyright protection, has drawn a strong objection from the News/Media Alliance, a U.S. organization. 

The Alliance argues that “allowing for the commercial use of copyrighted content absent an explicit opt-out would turn the fundamentals of copyright upside down.” 

That is true. It would place the entire burden on publishers, and is almost like a negative option scheme.  

The Alliance adds that “unregulated AI development can also lead to a broad range of societal harms, including the erosion of the creative industries through unauthorized use of protected content by AI developers.”  

Case in point: a “recent study by TollBit estimated that AI search engines deliver 91 percent and chatbots 95.7 percent fewer referrals to news websites than traditional search engines,” the Alliance points out.  

What kind of copyright scheme would the Alliance support? “The cornerstone of copyright policy is voluntary licensing, and the Government should support such solutions, and resist calls to make a dramatic change to its existing IP framework,” it says.

This is especially important because “AI technologies are so new, the use cases so unpredictable, and the economics so unknown," the Alliance continues. "For media publishing, the marketplace can support both individual, direct negotiated arrangements as well as voluntary collective licensing solutions.” 

The UK proposal would allow AI developers to use publisher content without authorization or compensation, unless the publisher takes affirmative action to opt-out through clumsy and ultimately ineffective technical measures,” the Alliance concludes. “This threatens the continued sustainability of newspaper, magazine, and digital media publishing.”