Writers, publishers, musicians, photographers, movie producers and newspapers have rejected the Labour government's plan to create a copyright exemption to help artificial intelligence companies train their algorithms.
In a joint statement, bodies representing thousands of creatives rejected the proposal made by ministers on Tuesday that would allow companies such as Open AI, Google and Meta to train their AI systems on published works unless their owners actively opt out.
The Creative Rights in AI Coalition (Crac) said existing copyright laws must be respected and enforced rather than degraded.
The coalition includes the British Phonographic Industry, the Independent Society of Musicians, the Motion Picture Association and the Society of Authors as well as Mumsnet, the Guardian, Financial Times, Telegraph, Getty Images, the Daily Mail Group and Newsquest.
Their intervention comes a day after the technology and culture minister Chris Bryant told parliament the proposed system, subject to a 10-week consultation, would "improve access to content by AI developers, whilst allowing rights holders to control how their content is used for AI training".
Tech UK, an industry lobby group, has called for a "more open" market to enable firms to use copyrighted data and make payments. The Conservative chair of the Commons culture, media and sport select committee, Caroline Dinenage, alleged the government had "fully drunk the Kool-Aid on AI".
But Bryant told MPs: "If we were to adopt a too tight a regime based on proactive, explicit permission, the danger is that international developers would continue to train their models using UK content accessed overseas, but may not be able to deploy them in the UK ... this could significantly disadvantage sectors across our economy, including the creative industries, sweep the rug from underneath British AI developers."
The creative industries want the onus to be on generative AI developers to seek permission, agree licences and pay rights holders if they want to train algorithms with the power to write, make moving images, pictures and music.
The joint statement from the creative industries, shared with the Guardian, said: "Rights holders do not support the new exception to copyright proposed. In fact, rights holders consider that the priority should be to ensure that current copyright laws are respected and enforceable. The only way to guarantee creative control and spur a dynamic licensing - and generative AI - market is for the onus to be on generative AI developers to seek permission and engage with rights holders to agree licences."