We have a chance to prevent AI decimating Britain’s creative industries – but it’s slipping away | Beeban Kidron

The government has doubled down on a plans that would allow mass cultural theft, but we are fighting it at every stage

• Beeban Kidron is a film director and crossbench peer in the House of Lords

For months now, legends of music, literature, product design, the visual arts and more have been sounding the alarm about the British government's plan to undermine copyright law. The fight kicked off when the government launched a consultation into regulating artificial intelligence with its own preferred" outcome: letting AI companies steal copyrighted work by default unless the owners of that work opt out". But opting out is impossible to do without AI transparency. The plan is a charter for theft, since creatives would have no idea who is taking what, when and from whom.

When the government stoops to a preferred outcome that undermines the moral right to your work and income, you might reasonably be angered. As Elton John said last weekend: The government have no right to do this to my songs. They have no right to do it to anybody's songs, or anybody's prose." His is just one voice among the thousands of British creators who are crying foul.

Beeban Kidron is a film director and crossbench peer in the House of Lords