A group of European authors, performers and other rightsholders have issued a joint statement slamming the third draft of the European Union’s GPAI (General-Purpose Artificial Intelligence) Code of Practice.
The statement comes as the EU continues to refine guidelines for its AI Act, which seeks to create a regulatory framework for AI systems operating within the bloc. The proposed rules include transparency and copyright-related rules, particularly for AI models deemed to pose “systemic risks.”
However, a coalition of creatives including the IFPI, which represents the recording industry worldwide, said the third draft is “completely unacceptable” as it “undermines the objectives of the AI Act, contravenes EU law and ignores the intention of the EU legislator,” according to their statement published on Friday (March 28).
Under a previous draft of the GPAI Code of Practice, providers of GPAI models — such as OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, Meta, Cohere, and Mistral — are required to implement a copyright policy on compliance with EU copyright law. The third draft no longer requires signatories to publish the copyright policy but are only “encouraged” to do so.
“Regrettably, the third draft does not meet the adequacy requirement provided by the EU AI Act, and, therefore, should not be approved without substantial improvements,” the coalition said.
“The draft waters down GPAI providers’ responsibility to undertake proper due diligence to ensure that the third-party datasets they use to train their models do not infringe copyright.”
Coalition of EU Creators and Rightsholders
While the third draft still requires AI companies to take “reasonable measures” to inform rightsholders about web crawlers they use and their handling of robot.txt protocols, it removes the previous obligation to publish this information.
One provision under the Code of Practice requires signatories to provide a point of contact for rightsholders and to allow for the submission of complaints concerning non-compliance. However, the third draft adds that companies “may refuse to act on the complaint.”
“The measure for GPAI providers to introduce a copyright complaints process only requires the introduction of a mechanism to lodge complaints in relation to the Code of Practice alone and without any reference to the measures GPAI providers should take to resolve them, rendering it an empty gesture rather than a meaningful enforcement tool,” the coalition of EU creators and rightsholders said.
They added: “The Code of Practice should provide proper measures to facilitate and persuade GPAI models to respect the two basic principles of copyright law: they should seek prior authorization and abstain from unauthorized uses of copyrighted material.
“The draft waters down GPAI providers’ responsibility to undertake proper due diligence to ensure that the third-party datasets they use to train their models do not infringe copyright.
“Not only would this eliminate any meaningful due diligence obligations to comply with EU copyright law and the AI Act, but it would also risk guiding GPAI providers towards copyright infringements.”
They added that the third draft “continues to render meaningless the right of authors, performers and other right holders to choose how they reserve their rights,” and “fails to provide meaningful guidance on what GPAI providers must do to comply with such reservations.”
The group reiterated the need for a template for a “sufficiently detailed summary of the content used for training,” allowing authors, performers, and other rightsholders to effectively exercise and enforce their rights.
The coalition includes the AAPA (Audiovisual Anti-Piracy Alliance), CISAC (International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers), ECSA (European Composer and Songwriter Alliance), EMMA (European Music Managers Alliance), FIM (International Federation of Musicians), GESAC (European Grouping of Societies of Authors and Composers), ICMP, IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry), IMPALA, and IMPF.
The European Commission is expected to release the fourth and final draft in May.
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