Guardian: “EU accused of leaving ‘devastating’ copyright loophole in AI Act”

London / Brussels, 19 February, 2025.

The Guardian (UK) article is dedicated to the effects of the EU AI Act and the CDSM Directive of 2019/790. In particular, it warns of the active hindrance by policymakers – including in the drafting of the Code of Practice – that makes it impossible for writers, translators, composers and other rights holders to enforce their rights against AI companies. EWC president of honour, Nina George, spoke of a fatal paradigm shift in the application and design of intellectual property rights. Meanwhile, 15 authors’, artists’, performers’ and cultural professional’s federations wrote a Joint Letter to Executive Vice-President Hanna Virkkunen, to appeal for a respectful politic towards creative individuals, who are stripped off their rights trough often non-European tech oligopolies.

(Quote from the article): The TDM exemption has sent shock waves across creative professions. Nina George, a German bestselling author whose works has been translated into 37 languages, described the TDM exception as “devastating”. Exclusions from copyright, she said, were originally intended to balance the interest of authors against those of the public, such as allowing schools to photocopy texts.

“These AI exceptions for commercial use mean that business interest will be served for the first time,” she said. “This is a shift of paradigms [and] a perverted way to bend copyrights and authors’ rights to serve the interest of a few businesses.”

George, who is president of honour at the European Writers Council, said she had no way of finding out if any of her works had been used to feed generative AI systems. “The lack of instruments to enforce any rights, this is the scandal in the construction of the AI Act [in] relation to copyright directive.”

Read the full article by Jennifer Rankin, Brussels Correspondent of The Guardian (UK):

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/feb/19/eu-accused-of-leaving-devastating-copyright-loophole-in-ai-act