ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Topics related to authors’ rights & new technologies

SPAIN: EWC supports its Spanish Members against abusive AI training

Spain’s cultural sector says “No, gracias” to Royal Decree – Survey shows: half of authors do not want to license works for AI Spain was pushing another threat for writers in the training of general-purpose AI models. By proposing an extended collective licensing (ECL) regime…

Statement on AI training by authors and artists

EWC supports the Statement on AI training and joins hundreds and thousands authors and artists: The unlicensed use of creative works for training generative AI is a major, unjust threat to the livelihoods of the people behind those works, and must not be permitted. The…

EWC contribution to the AI Office consultation: Future-Proof AI Act

EWC responded to the Multi-stakeholder Consultation FUTURE-PROOF AI ACT: TRUSTWORTHY GENERALPURPOSE AI with the proviso that the premise of this consultation needs formal clarification. The exception(s) for text and data mining (Art. 3, Art. 4, Directive (EU) 2019/790) is inapplicable: The statutory language and text…

AI Pact: EWC contribution to the Selection of Topics

EWC urges the AI Office to not forget the sources of all AI development in the AI Pact: Authors, Artists and Performers The AI Act Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 laying down harmonised rules on artificial intelligence entered into force on August 1, 2024. In this context,…

THE EWC’s AI TOOL KIT FOR THE BOOK SECTOR

Recommendations by the European Writers’ Council (EWC) for writers and translators, publishers, booksellers, event organisers and further stakeholders of the book sector for bilateral and contractual agreements and technical requirements. This Tool Kit can be used by political decision-makers as well as AI providers who…

Welcome to the EWC AGM 2024 in Helsinki

The EWC Annual General Meeting (AGM) and side events will take place from 24-26 May 2024 in Helsinki, Finland. On Friday a Reception by the City of Helsinki will be held in the City Hall and later on the over registered 50 delegates can enjoy…

JOINT STATEMENT ON GENERATIVE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND THE EU AI ACT

AUTHORS’, PERFORMERS’ AND OTHER CREATIVE WORKERS’ ORGANISATIONS JOINT STATEMENT ON GENERATIVE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND THE EU AI ACT  With 12 other authors’, performers’ & creative workers’ organisations, we stated again the necessity of an effective implementation of the EU #AIAct. Our fundamental rights as authors…

EWC’s Ten Principles to regulate Generative AI

EWC Handout: ten tasks and future scenarios to be addressed by political decisionmakers and stakeholders to regulate generative AI. The European Writers’ Council (EWC) is the world’s largest representation of writers in the book sector and of all genres (fiction, non-fiction, academic, children’s book, poetry,…

Statement: all AI images need to be flagged: and how we failed …

All AI images need to be flagged: how we failed for an unverified image. What happened? On April 2nd, International Children’s Book Day, the EWC published a corresponding photo statement. We then received information that the graphic used could be AI-generated. We investigated this, as…

EWC at the AI Summit of the Federal Ministry of Justice Germany

AI Summit: Is copyright law up to the challenge? The increasing use of generative AI technology raises a variety of issues related to copyright. On March 5, 2024, the Federal Ministry of Justice hosted an international conference to discuss the most pressing of these issues…

Policy implications of the development of virtual worlds

EWC welcomes the adopted report Policy implications of the development of virtual worlds – civil, company, commercial and intellectual property law issues (2023/2062(INI)) In the shadow of the AI Act, equally relevant reports and political decisions are being negotiated in the final months of the…

For an innovation and creator friendly AI Act

Europe’s creative community urges EU policymakers to put transparency back at the heart of the EU AI Act. As the AI Act is entering into the final round of negotiations, we urge all policy makers to prioritise maximum transparency on training data and artificially generated…

WIPO SCCR 44: EWC Statement on a WIPO Info Session on generative AI

EWC Statement at WIPO’s SCCR, 44th Session, November 2023 As the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) held the 44th session of its Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) in November 2023 EWC’s Secretary General Nicole Pfister Fetz submitted on behalf of the European…

Urgent – Al Act: Letter of concern on the stopped negotiations

Al Act Proposal Trilogue: Letter of concern on the stopped negotiations over Foundation Models It was with great dismay that we learned of the termination of the negotiations during the Technical Meeting on the 10th of November, after the request of certain Member States to…

DICTIONARY ON ADVANCED INFORMATICS (AI)

Already, numerous criminal and damaging “AI business models” have developed in the book sector – with fake authors, fake books and also fake readers. It has been proved that the fundaments for large language models such as GPT, Meta, StableLM, BERT have been generated from…

Analysis: The success of Generative AI in the book sector is based on theft

Generative, analytical and assistive informatics, sub-areas of so-called artificial “intelligence”, threatens numerous jobs and fields of labour in the book sector and will replace some professions by machines in the medium run; be it in the areas of writing, editing, proof reading, production, cover design,…

EWC launches the initiative AGAINST WRITOIDS

THE EUROPEAN WRITERS’ COUNCIL LAUNCHES ITS INITIATIVE TO FIGHT MISUSE OF so-called  Artificial Intelligence   IN THE WRITTEN CULTURE: www.AgainstWritoids.org EWC presents the concept of “writoid¹” to avoid the false impression of Artificial Generative “Intelligence” as a mysterious and sage oracle, but as simple and high…