Tag: Baroness Kidron

The Delay’s The Thing: Anthropic Leapfrogs Its Own November Valuation Despite Litigation from Authors and Songwriters in the Heart of Darkness

If you’ve read Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, you’ll be familiar with the Congo Free State, a private colony of Belgian King Leopold II that is today largely the Democratic Republic of the Congo. When I say “private” I mean literally privately owned by his Leopoldness. Why would old King Leo be so interested in owning a private colony in Africa? Why for the money, of course. Leo had to move some pieces around the board and get other countries to allow him to get away with essentially “buying” the place, if “buying” is the right description.

So Leo held an international conference in Berlin to discuss the idea and get international buy-in, kind of like the World Economic Forum with worse food and no skiing. Rather than acknowledging his very for-profit intention to ravage the Congo for ivory (aka slaughtering elephants) and rubber (the grisly extraction of which was accomplished by uncompensated slave labor) with brutal treatment of all concerned, Leo convinced the assembled nations that his intentions were humanitarian and philanthropic. You know, don’t be evil. Just lie.

Of course, however much King Leopold may have foreshadowed our sociopathic overlords from Silicon Valley, it must be said that Leo’s real envy won’t so much be the money as what he could have done with AI himself had he only known. Oh well, he just had to make do with Kurtz.

Which bring us to AI in general and Anthropic in particular. Anthropic’s corporate slogan is equally humanitarian and philanthropic: “Anthropic is an AI research company that focuses on the safety and alignment of AI systems with human values.” Oh yes, all very jolly.

All very innocent and high minded, until you get punched in the face (to coin a phrase). It turns out–quelle horreur–that Anthropic stands accused of massive copyright infringement rather than lauded for its humanitarianism. Even more shocking? The company’s valuation is going through the stratosphere! These innocents surely must be falsely accused! The VC’s are voting with their bucks, so they wouldn’t put their shareholders’ money or limiteds money on the line for a–RACKETEER INFLUENCED CORRUPT ORGANIZATION?!?

Bartz v Anthropic ComplaintDownload

Not only have authors brought this class action against Anthropic which is both Google’s stalking horse and cats paw to mix a metaphor, but the songwriters and music publishers have sued them as well. Led by Concord and Universal, the publishers have sued for largely the same reasons as the authors but for their quite distinct copyrights.

Concord and Universal v Anthropic ComplaintDownload

So let’s understand the game that’s being played here–as the Artist Rights Institute submitted in a comment to the UK Intellectual Property Office in the IPO’s current consultation on AI and copyright, the delay is the thing. And thanks to Anthropic, we can now put a valuation on the delay since the $4,000,000,000 the company raised in November 2024: $3,500,000,000. This one company is valued at $61.5 billion, roughly half of the entire creative industries in the UK and roughly equal to the entire U.S. music industry. No wonder delay is their business model.

However antithetical, copyright and AI must be discussed together for a very specific reason:  Artificial intelligence platforms operated by Google, Microsoft/OpenAI, Meta and the like have scraped and ingested works of authorship from baby pictures to Sir Paul McCartney as fast and as secretly as possible.  And the AI platforms know that the longer they can delay accountability, the more of the world’s culture they will have devoured—or as they might say, the more data they will have ingested.  And Not to mention the billions in venture capital they will have raised, just like Anthropic. For the good of humanity, of course, just like old King Leo.

As the Hon. Alison Hume, MP recently told Parliament, this theft is massive and has already happened, another example of why any “opt out” scheme (as had been suggested by the UK government) has failed before it starts:

This week, I discovered that the subtitles from one of my episodes of New Tricks have been scraped and are being used to create learning materials for artificial intelligence.  Along with thousands of other films and television shows, my original work is being used by generative AI to write scripts which one day may replace versions produced by mere humans like me.

This is theft, and it’s happening on an industrial scale.  As the law stands, artificial intelligence companies don’t have to be transparent about what they are stealing.[1]

Any delay[2] in prosecuting AI platforms simply increases their de facto “text and data mining” safe harbor while they scrape ever more of world culture.  As Ms. Hume states, this massive “training” has transferred value to these data-hungry mechanical beasts to a degree that confounds human understanding of its industrial scale infringement.  This theft dwarfs even the Internet piracy that drove broadband penetration, Internet advertising and search platforms in the 1999-2010 period.  It must be said that for Big Tech, commerce and copyright are once again inherently linked for even greater profit.

As the Right Honourable Baroness Kidron said in her successful opposition to the UK Government’s AI legislation in the House of Lords:

The Government are doing this not because the current law does not protect intellectual property rights, nor because they do not understand the devastation it will cause, but because they are hooked on the delusion that the UK’s best interests and economic future align with those of Silicon Valley.[3]  

Baroness Kidron identifies a question of central importance that mankind is forced to consider by the sheer political brute force of the AI lobbying steamroller:  What if AI is another bubble like the Dot Com bubble?  AI is, to a large extent, a black box utterly lacking in transparency much less recordkeeping or performance metrics.  As Baroness Kidron suggests, governments and the people who elect them are making a very big bet that AI is not pursuing an ephemeral bubble like the last time.

Indeed, the AI hype has the earmarks of a bubble, just as the Dot Com bubble did.  Baroness Kidron also reminds us of these fallacious economic arguments surrounding AI:

The Prime Minister cited an IMF report that claimed that, if fully realised, the gains from AI could be worth up to an average of £47 billion to the UK each year over a decade. He did not say that the very same report suggested that unemployment would increase by 5.5% over the same period. This is a big number—a lot of jobs and a very significant cost to the taxpayer. Nor does that £47 billion account for the transfer of funds from one sector to another. The creative industries contribute £126 billion per year to the economy. I do not understand the excitement about £47 billion when you are giving up £126 billion.[4]  

As Hon. Chris Kane, MP said in Parliament,  the Government runs the risk of enabling a wealth transfer that itself is not producing new value but would make old King Leo feel right at home: 

Copyright protections are not a barrier to AI innovation and competition, but they are a safeguard for the work of an industry worth £125 billion per year, employing over two million people.  We can enable a world where much of this value  is transferred to a handful of big tech firms or we can enable a win-win situation for the creative industries and AI developers, one where they work together based on licensed relationships with remuneration and transparency at its heart.

[1] Paul Revoir, AI companies are committing ‘theft’ on an ‘industrial scale’, claims Labour MP – who has written for TV series including New Tricks, Daily Mail (Feb. 12, 2025) available at https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14391519/AI-companies-committing-theft-industrial-scale-claims-Labour-MP-wrote-TV-shows-including-New-Tricks.html

[2] See, e.g., Kerry Muzzey, [YouTube Delay Tactics with DMCA Notices], Twitter (Feb. 13, 2020) available at https://twitter.com/kerrymuzzey/status/1228128311181578240  (Film composer with Content ID account notes “I have a takedown pending against a heavily-monetized YouTube channel w/a music asset that’s been fine & in use for 7 yrs & 6 days. Suddenly today, in making this takedown, YT decides “there’s a problem w/my metadata on this piece.” There’s no problem w/my metadata tho. This is the exact same delay tactic they threw in my way every single time I applied takedowns against broadcast networks w/monetized YT channels….And I attached a copy of my copyright registration as proof that it’s just fine.”); Zoë Keating, [Content ID secret rules], Twitter (Feb. 6. 2020) available at https://twitter.com/zoecello/status/1225497449269284864  (Independent artist with Content ID account states “[YouTube’s Content ID] doesn’t find every video, or maybe it does but then it has selective, secret rules about what it ultimately claims for me.”).

[3] The Rt. Hon. Baroness Kidron, Speech regarding Data (Use and Access) Bill [HL] Amendment 44A, House of Lords (Jan. 28, 2025) available at https://hansard.parliament.uk/Lords%E2%80%8F/2025-01-28/debates/9BEB4E59-CAB1-4AD3-BF66-FE32173F971D/Data(UseAndAccess)Bill(HL)#contribution-9A4614F3-3860-4E8E-BA1E-53E932589CBF 

[4] Id. 

UK Government’s AI Legislation is Defeated in the House of Lords

The new-ish UK government led by Labour Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer faced a defeat in the House of Lords regarding their AI bill. The defeat was specifically about measures to protect copyrighted material from being used to train AI models without permission or compensation. Members of the House of Lords (known as “Peers”) voted 145 to 126 in favor of amendments to the UK Government’s Data (Use and Access) Bill, proposed by film director Beeban Tania Kidron, the Baroness Kidron (a “cross bench peer”) which aim to safeguard the intellectual property of creatives. Lady Kidron said:

There is a role in our economy for AI… and there is an opportunity for growth in the combination of AI and creative industries, but this forced marriage on slave terms is not it.

So there’s that. We need a film director in the Senate, don’t you think? Yes, let’s have one of those, please.

Bill Dies With Amendments

The amendments proposed by Baroness Kidron received cross-party support (what would be called “bi-partisan” in the US, but the UK has more than two political parties represented in Parliament). The amendments include provisions to ensure, among other things, that AI companies comply with UK copyright law, disclose the names and owners of web crawlers doing their dastardly deeds in the dark of the recesses of the Internet, and allow copyright owners to know when and how their work is used. It might even protect users of Microsoft or Google products from having their drafts crawled and scraped for AI training.

This defeat highlights the growing concerns within Parliament about the unregulated use of copyrighted material by major tech firms. Starmer’s Data (Use and Access) Bill was proposed by the UK government to excuse the use of copyrighted material by AI models. However, thanks in part to Lady Kidron it faced significant opposition in the House of Lords, leading to its defeat.

Here’s a summary of why it failed:

  1. Cross-Party Support for Amendments: The amendments proposed by Baroness Kidron received strong support from both Labour and Conservative peers. They argued that the bill needed stronger measures to protect the intellectual property of creatives.
  2. Transparency and Redress: The amendments aimed to improve transparency by requiring AI companies to disclose the names and owners of web crawlers and allowing copyright owners to know when and how their work is used.
  3. Government’s Preferred Option: The government suggested an “opt-out” system for text and data mining, which would allow AI developers to scrape copyrighted content unless rights holders actively opted out. This approach was heavily criticized as it would lead to widespread unauthorized use of intellectual property, or as we might say in Texas, that’s bullshit for starters.
  4. Economic Impact: Supporters of the amendments argued that the bill, in its original form, would transfer wealth from individual creatives and small businesses to big tech companies, undermining the sustainability of the UK’s creative industries. Because just like Google’s products, it was a thinly disguised wealth transfer.

The defeat highlights the growing concerns within Parliament about the unregulated use of copyrighted material by major tech firms and the need for stronger protections for creatives. several prominent artists voiced their opposition to the UK government’s AI bill. Sir Elton John and Sir Paul McCartney were among the most prominent critics. They argued that the government’s proposed changes would allow AI companies to use copyrighted material without proper compensation, which could threaten the livelihoods of artists, especially emerging ones.

Elton John expressed concerns that the bill would enable big tech companies to “ride roughshod over traditional copyright laws,” potentially diluting and threatening young artists’ earnings. As a fellow former member of Long John Baldry’s back up band, I say well done, Reg. Paul McCartney echoed these sentiments, emphasizing that the new laws would allow AI to rip off creators and hinder younger artists who might not have the means to protect their work–and frankly, the older artists don’t either when going up against Google and Microsoft, with backing by Softbank and freaking countries.

Their opposition highlights the broader concerns within the creative community like Ivors Academy and ECSA about the potential impact of AI on artists’ rights and earnings.

Role of the House of Lords

The House of Lords is one of the two houses of the UK Parliament, the other being the House of Commons. It plays a crucial role in the legislative process and functions as a revising chamber. Here are some key aspects of the House of Lords:

Functions of the House of Lords

  1. Scrutiny and Revision of Legislation:
    • The House of Lords reviews and scrutinizes bills passed by the House of Commons.
    • It can suggest amendments and revisions to bills, although it cannot ultimately block legislation.
  2. Debate and Deliberation:
    • The Lords engage in detailed debates on a wide range of issues, contributing their expertise and experience.
    • These debates can influence public opinion and policy-making.
  3. Committees:
    • The House of Lords has several committees that investigate specific issues, scrutinize government policies, and produce detailed reports.
    • Committees play a vital role in examining the impact of proposed legislation and holding the government to account.
  4. Checks and Balances:
    • The House of Lords acts as a check on the power of the House of Commons and the executive branch of the government.
    • It ensures that legislation is thoroughly examined and that diverse perspectives are considered.

Composition of the House of Lords

  • Life Peers: Appointed by the King on the advice of the Prime Minister, these members serve for life but do not pass on their titles.
  • Bishops: A number of senior bishops from the Church of England have seats in the House of Lords.
  • Hereditary Peers: A limited number of hereditary peers remain, but most hereditary peerages no longer carry the right to sit in the House of Lords.
  • Law Lords: Senior judges who used to sit in the House of Lords as the highest court of appeal, a function now transferred to the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom.

Limitations

While the House of Lords can delay legislation and suggest amendments, it does not have the power to prevent the House of Commons from passing laws. Its role is more about providing expertise, revising, and advising rather than blocking legislation.

Now What?

Following the defeat in the House of Lords, the government’s Data (Use and Access) Bill will need to be reconsidered by the UK government. They will have to decide whether to accept the amendments proposed by the Lords or to push back and attempt to pass the bill in its original form.

It’s not entirely unusual for Labour peers to vote against a Labour government, especially on issues where they have strong differing opinions or concerns. The House of Lords operates with a degree of independence of the House of Commons, where I would say it would be highly unusual for the government to lose a vote on something as visible at the AI issue.

The AI bill would no doubt be a “triple whip vote”, a strict instruction issued by a political party to its members usually in the House of Commons (in this case the Labour Party), requiring them to attend a vote and vote according to the party’s official stance to support the Government. It’s the most serious form of voting instruction, indicating that the vote is crucial and that party discipline must be strictly enforced. Despite the sadomasochistic overtones of a “triple whip” familiar as caning to British public school boys, peers in the Lords often vote based on their own judgment and expertise rather than strict party lines. This can lead to situations where Labour peers might oppose government proposals if they believe it is in the best interest of the public or aligns with their principles. Imagine that!

So, while it’s not the norm, it’s also not entirely unexpected for Labour peers to vote against a Labour government when significant issues are at stake like, oh say the destruction of the British creative industries.

Crucially, the government is currently consulting on the issue of text and data mining through the Intellectual Property Office. The IPO is accepting public comments on the AI proposals with a deadline of February 25, 2025. This feedback will likely influence their next steps. Did I say that the IPO is accepting public comments, even from Americans? Hint, hint. Read all about the IPO consultation here.