Almost since the World Wide Web became a household technology, print media companies have been fighting a somewhat one-sided battle with online publishers for readers and revenue. However, both now are facing the rise of generative AI scaping their content for data training, typically without consent and remuneration. The UK's prime minister wants competition in the digital market to be legislated to "rebalance the relationship" between online platforms and publishers, especially in light of the era of AI.
Kier Starmer, Blighty's big boss, made the statement via a short post on The Guardian, kicking things off with some stern comments about modern journalism, democracy, and press freedom. However, it was AI and market legislation that he really wanted to talk about.
"Both artificial intelligence and the creative industries—which include news media—are central to this government’s driving mission on economic growth," he noted, making it clear that he wasn't against the use of AI.
"To strike balance in our industrial policy, we are working closely with these sectors. We recognise the basic principle that publishers should have control over and seek payment for their work, including when thinking about the role of AI."
Now, you might be wondering what exactly he means about publishers having control of their work and getting paid for it. After all, don't they already get paid, either through paper fees, subscriptions, and advertising revenue?
Although Starmer doesn't explicitly state this, I'm pretty sure he's referring to AI companies scraping published content to train their models. The media company doesn't have control over how that data then gets used and it doesn't get paid for it unless it's all been approved beforehand.
To counter this, the UK government wants to introduce new regulations, and according to the prime minister, "[t]his landmark legislation will help rebalance the relationship between online platforms and those, such as publishers, who rely on them."
Simply called the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (huge webpage warning), it's the UK government's way, the proposed regulations are mostly about improving consumer rights and clamping down on unfair practices, such as fake reviews and hidden fees. However, it also includes changes related to digital markets.
These will allow the UK's Competition and Markets Authority to issue specific technology companies with a 'strategic market status', which would make them subject to special codes of conduct, competition interventions, and further regulations about mergers and the like.
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I suspect that it's the interventions part that would come into effect here, regarding AI data scraping, as the legislation states that "The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) may make a pro-competition intervention...[after] following a PCI investigation, the CMA considers that a factor or combination of factors relating to a relevant digital activity is having an adverse effect on competition."
Personally, while I think it would be nicer to have regulations that could limit the practice of data scraping altogether, having some laws that can be employed to slap AI companies' wrists for using published content without consent is a good thing.
And since generative AI isn't going to disappear any time soon or at the very least, it won't disappear while there are billions of dollar-pounds being invested and made, it's important that the powers that be are doing something about it all.
