Joint Statement by EWC, EFJ and CEATL on the Own Initiative Report Copyright and AI by the JURI Committee and Rapporteur MEP Axel Voss.

On the occasion of the stakeholder roundtable to discuss Axel Voss’ own initiative report on AI & Copyright on September 1st from 11:00-13:00 online, EWC’s Secretary General Nicole Pfister Fetz delivered the following joint intervention on behalf EWC, EFJ and Ceatl:

We, the federations EWC, EFJ and CEATL, represent over 550,000 individual writers, journalists and literary translators from 165 associations. We appreciate the important discussions you constantly initiate to listen to our needs. We represent that largest group of cultural innovators whose works (and work) are globally exploited by the approximately 270 large language models with 10^23 FLOPs and today’s 1.328 LLMs in operation worldwide.

We are aware that the report Copyright and generative artificial intelligence will evolve, but provide you today with our most important five feedback points.

1. We greatly welcome the clarity on the over-interpretation of Article 4 of the CDSM Directive, and that TDM does not cover generative AI development. We like to see the same criticism being levelled at Article 3 of the CDSM Directive, as it is similarly abused by commercial AI developers, e.g. through private partnerships with scientific institutions.
2. Authors must be granted the right to exercise their exclusive rights, not through a regime of post-facto reservation of rights (“opt-out”), forcing authors into technical formalities, but exclusively through the voluntary granting of usage agreements for GenAI uses and with substantial We therefore reject any additional (Gen)AI exception in full as well as any mandatory licenses including mandatory collective licensing, but agree to voluntary licensing with proportional remuneration.
3. We strongly reject the expanding of Art 4(3) of the CDSM Directive onto GenAI use, or any addition of a new ‘AI exemption’. The majority of writers, journalists and translators remain strictly opposed to the use of their work and works for the development of generative technology in general. They do not want to support a system developed to replace them and harm freedom of speech and expression.
4. We expressly thank you for identifying the need for title-specific transparency as the basis for enforcing our rights. We also appreciate the reference to the transparency of AI products. However, we are critical of introducing a register that only grants protection upon completion of the sign-up process. Administrative registration must not replace the basis of a legal protection.
5. Not all forms and distribution methods of cultural works can adopt ONE standard – just as books cannot use robots.txt, photographers cannot use ISBN, watermarks do not work for performances or audio works. We have to build on a multi-approach.

The European Parliament and its most important statutory body, the JURI Committee, have a duty to defend authors’ rights in this time of upheaval and negotiation between the economic ambitions of tech giants and the principles of democratic societies with their rights to culture, media and freedom of speech. This power comes with responsibility: to protect rights, and to defend cultural plurality.

We are convinced that authors’ rights, personal rights and anti-discrimination laws have by no means lost their relevance – on the contrary, they are more important than ever.

 

European Council of Literary Translators’ Associations (CEATL)

European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) 

European Writers’ Council (EWC) 

ABOUT THE SIGNATORIES 

CEATL (European Council of Literary Translators’ Associations) is an international non-profit organisation created in 1993 as a platform where literary translators’ associations from different European countries could exchange views and information and join forces to improve status and working conditions of translators. Today is the largest organisation of literary translators in Europe with 38 member associations from 30 countries, representing some 10,000 individual literary translators. www.ceatl.eu 

EFJ (European Federation of Journalists) is the largest organisation of journalists in Europe, representing over 296,000 journalists in 75 journalists’ organisations across 44 countries. The EFJ is recognised by the European Union and the Council of Europe as the representative voice of journalists in Europe. The EFJ is a member of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC). www.europeanjournalists.com 

EWC (European Writers’ Council) is the world’s largest federation representing authors from the book sector only and constituted by 53 national professional writers’ and literary translators’ associations from 34 countries. EWC members comprise over 250,000 professional authors, writing and publishing in 36 languages. www.europeanwriterscouncil.eu