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29 Danish rights organizations urge the government to push for clear frameworks and rules for AI. In a joint letter to the Minister of Culture, they warn that insufficient regulation of artificial intelligence risks undermining copyright and the human-created content it is meant to protect.
We stand at an AI crossroads. Should there still be a strong and sustainable Danish cultural sector in the future, or will our cultural consumption be driven by algorithms and content from American and Chinese tech giants?
With these words, 29 rights organizations open a joint letter sent today to Minister of Culture Jakob Engel-Schmidt. In the letter, they call on Denmark to take active political leadership to ensure future regulation of artificial intelligence that brings copyright back into play and makes it possible to enforce it.
Read the open letter to the Minister of Culture here
Transparency is essential
Maria Fredenslund, Director of the Rights Alliance, is a co-signatory of the letter. She urges the Minister of Culture to take concrete action on the recommendations developed by the expert group on copyright and artificial intelligence.
Maria Fredenslund, Director of the Rights Alliance, says:
We see that AI giants are infringing copyright by training their services with illegal content sourced from pirate sites. At the same time, rights holders have no real way to object, as AI companies withhold information about their training data. It is therefore urgent to establish regulation that gives rights holders sufficient insight into the use of their content, enabling them to enforce their rights. With the expert group’s recommendations, Denmark has the best foundation to lead the way in the EU. We urge the Minister of Culture to turn these recommendations into action.
In the letter, the organizations highlight four specific areas where active political action is needed:
- The importance of copyright must be recognized at a time when rights are under massive pressure from AI services and other tech giants.
- AI services must provide comprehensive and understandable information about the content they use, so that rights holders can effectively exercise their rights.
- A foundation must be created for a well-functioning licensing market for AI, ensuring that rights holders receive a fair share of the value created throughout the AI value chain.
- Fair competition conditions must be ensured, so that AI-generated content does not unfairly outcompete or replace human-created content.