EU laws ‘clearly inadequate’ to protect creators’ IP, Oireachtas committee hears

DCM Editorial Summary: This story has been independently rewritten and summarised for DCM readers to highlight key developments relevant to the region. Original reporting by Irish Times, click this post to read the original article.

European Union laws regulating artificial intelligence (AI) are “clearly inadequate” to protect creators’ intellectual property (IP), the Oireachtas AI committee heard on Tuesday.

National Union of Journalists (NUJ) assistant general secretary, Séamus Dooley, told the joint Oireachtas committee on AI that existing Europe-wide laws under the AI Act “are not working”, describing them as “inadequate law, inadequately transposed” into Ireland.

He said that journalists are not resisting change, instead contending that news publishers have repeatedly adapted to new technologies with change being viewed as “the constant”.

“It is very easy to sound like the blacksmith bemoaning the introduction of the motorcar, to sound like an old fogey,” the NUJ representative said, noting that is not the intention, with the union calling for the introduction of regulation similar to the rules of the road. “There has to be a clear and unambiguous enforcement of copyright law.”

NewsBrands vice-chairwoman Deirdre Veldon who is also consultant, media and policy to The Irish Times, called for the Government to help companies in “exercising our IP and our entitlement to compensation for the use of our content – both in AI platforms and in search and social engines – which has not been acknowledged to date.”

She characterised the European Union Copyright Directive as “utterly ineffective in terms of helping publishers to assert their ownership of copyright”.

“In the case of AI, we don’t even get […] acknowledgment that the content is being used. At least in the case of search we do,” said Veldon, but noted that compensation for the use of the content is slow to be received.

Both the NUJ and NewsBrands called for the classifying of tech platforms as publishers, which is seen as a method of addressing many of the issues caused by AI.

Big tech platforms have “pillaged and profited from the media sector with financial impunity”, Dooley said. He called for windfall tax on these companies, noting the “only thing capital understands is cost”.

The committee was told that platforms such as search engines and social media have “got [sic] away with murder” by self-defining as “merely platformers and not publishers”, Dooley said.

Dooley said “very few areas of journalism [are] not touched by AI,” he said, warning of the occurrence of the “wholesale robbery of material owned” by its members and that the NUJ has come across media organisations across the UK and Ireland that replacing fact-checking positions in favour of AI.

He said the difference with AI is that it has been “imposed without any consultation whatsoever, and it has huge implications on how you do your work, and whether you have a job at all or not.”

NewsBrands also called for public funding for news publishers. “The funding programs that have been put in place are, in our view, limited,” Veldon said, “they are possibly not working in our favour, and not working in the right direction.”

She acknowledged that they have been set-up is so as not to compromise the independence of publishers but called for the allocation of funding to support innovation, in “less restrictive” and “more generous” manner.

Sammi Bourke, the chairwoman of NewsBrands Ireland echoed the sentiment, calling for “funding that will drive innovation in the widest sense while preserving our independence” in her opening statement.

Dr Eileen Culloty the co-chairwoman of Media Literacy Ireland said technology companies “overhype AI systems and embed them into everyday life”.

Culloty said this presents an issue in the education system, where her organisation is telling teachers they can “take technology out of the classroom”.

Technology companies, she said, “want people to become dependent on the AI summaries, so that you never go to the source, and so you replace your own thinking and investigating. It’s a very old tactic. You lock people in as early as possible, and the best way to lock people in is via the schools when they are young.”