The European Parliament’s adoption on Tuesday of a resolution aimed at creating a framework for a deeper embrace of AI across Europe while protecting cultural sovereignty has met with a mixed response from across the region.
The non-binding report, entitled ‘Copyright and Generative Artificial Intelligence – opportunities and challenges’ and led by centrist Christian Democrat Union MEP Alex Voss, has been drawn up as a framework for how the European Commission should proceed on addressing AI and copyright law.
Its suggestions span enshrining in EU law full disclosure of all copyrighted works used to train AI models, with automatic copyright infringement proceedings against parties which fail to be completely transparency.
Other key points include the establishment of a licensing framework recognizing collective management organizations to enable fair remuneration for creators whose work is used by generative AI tools, as well as the creation of a system to enable immediate, fair and proportionate remuneration for past uses of copyrighted works by AI providers.
The approval of the resolution comes at a time when EU copyright law in the age of AI is under scrutiny ahead of a larger review of the 2021 Digital Single Market directive which is expected to begin from June of this year.
The Federation of European Screen Directors (FERA); the Federation of Screenwriters in Europe (FSE) and the Society of Audiovisual Authors (SAA) put out a joint statement welcoming the adoption of the resolution and urging the European Commission to transpose its suggestions into concrete actions.
“Today’s vote confirms what Europe’s screenwriters and directors have been saying for years: the current framework is failing them. GenAI companies have built billion-euro businesses on the works of audiovisual authors without asking, paying or disclosure. The Parliament has now spoken with a clear majority. We call on the European Commission to swiftly introduce enforceable obligations that level the playing field,” said SAA Chair Barbara Hayes.
FERA Chair Bill Anderson added that the profession of directing would be under threat unless copyright legislation was updated for the AI-era.
“Directors have always been early adopters of new technologies and many already work with AI. However, they are now seeing AI systems replicate their work. The Parliament acknowledges this threat to their livelihoods and gives it political weight. Now, we need the Commission to enforce rules so that European directors can continue to tell original stories that engage audiences worldwide,” he said.
His words were echoed by FSE President Jacob Groll who suggested generative AI tools were stealing from the federation’s screenwriter members.
“Every film, every series, every episode of television has a screenwriter behind it who spend months, most often years, bringing it to life. These words are taken unlawfully, without consent and without remuneration – stolen by generative AI systems to be used as basis of their own product. This is not an abstract policy debate, it is the fight for creatives to earn a living and for the diversity of stories offered to European audiences,” he said.
Umbrella group GESAC, gathering 32 author and creator societies from across the European Union, Iceland, Norway, and Switzerland with more than one million members between them, also welcomed the adoption of the report.
“Today’s vote sends a strong and timely political message,” said Director General Adriana Moscoso del Prado.
“At a moment when the European Commission is assessing the EU copyright framework, the JURI Committee has clearly recognised the need for targeted EU intervention to address the ongoing massive unfairness in the generative AI market and to ensure appropriate remuneration of European creators across its value chain. This is also good news for European innovative businesses seeking level playing field and European sovereignty.”
Not everyone embraced the European Parliament’s resolution.
The Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA) said its measures risked restricting Europe’s access to cutting-edge technologies.
It was particularly critical of the call for fresh legislation around how AI tools access existing content, saying that the Copyright Directive’s text-and-data-mining (TDM) exception, which allows developers to train models on publicly available material unless rights-holders opt out, was already adequate.
It criticized the European Parliament’s call for prior authorisation or broad licensing regimes, saying they would create new complexity and legal uncertainty, and essentially impose a “compliance tax” on EU companies and also price local startups out of the market in the face of negotiating complex licences with major publishers.
It called on the EU Commission to leave the EU’s Copyright Directive and AI Act untouched, with a focus on effective implementation rather than new legislation.
“Today’s non-binding report sends the wrong signal to innovators, and risks holding back Europe’s digital competitiveness on the global stage. The EU already has strong, future-proof rules that carefully balance the interests of rightsholders with AI innovation,” said CCIA Europe’s AI Policy Lead, Boniface de Champris:
“The last thing the EU needs right now is more complexity. It just needs to enforce the ones it already has. Let the Copyright Directive and AI Act do their job.”
