About 800 artists, writers, actors and musicians have joined a fresh campaign against what they call “large-scale theft” by AI companies. The signatories of the campaign, titled ‘Theft is not innovation’, include authors George Saunders and Jodi Picoult, actors Cate Blanchett and Scarlett Johansson, and musicians such as REM, Billy Corgan and The Roots.
“Driven by fierce competition for leadership in the new GenAI technology, profit-hungry technology companies, including some of the world’s wealthiest, as well as privately funded ventures, have copied vast amounts of creative content on the Internet without permission or payment to those who created it,” the press release reads. “This illegal plunder of intellectual property fosters an information ecosystem dominated by disinformation, deepfakes and a stupid artificial avalanche of low-quality material [‘AI slop’]risking the collapse of the AI model and directly threatening US AI superiority and international competitiveness.”
Advocacy activities have been ongoing since “Human Artistry” campaign.a group of organizations including the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), professional sports players’ unions, and performers’ unions such as SAG-AFTRA. The Stealing Isn’t Innovation campaign messages will appear in full-page advertisements on news outlets and social media. Specifically, the campaign calls for licensing agreements and a “healthy enforcement environment,” as well as the right for artists to opt out of having their works used to train generative AI.
At the federal level, President Donald Trump and his tech industry allies are trying to control how states regulate artificial intelligence and punish those who try. At an industry level, tech companies and rights holders who were once on opposite sides are increasingly cutting back on licensing agreements that allow AI companies to apply protected work — content licensing appears to be a solution both sides can live with, at least for now. For example, major record labels are now partnering with AI music startups to make their catalogs available for AI remixing and model training. Digital publishers, some of whom are suing the AI companies that train them in their work, have backed a licensing standard that stores can apply to block their content from appearing in AI search results. Some outlets have signed individual agreements with technology companies that allow AI chatbots to reveal news content (disclosure: Vox Media, Edgethe parent company has a licensing agreement with OpenAI.)