🚨 It looks like the UK government is gearing up to upend copyright law in favour of AI companies, legalising the theft of their work.
This is despite creatives' huge protests, and despite previous proposals being roundly rejected by the public.
Please spread the word.
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omg
In Rutland where Sir Alan Duncan used to be MP, some mischievous folk sneaked into his garden and put price labels on all the things he'd claimed expenses for.
The duck house was a rather humorous addition.
In honour of the woman who, more than anyone, is responsible for this moment of transparency with the #EpsteinFiles, we're removing the paywall from this profile
🟨‘Virginia Roberts Giuffre Was an American Hero’ subscribe.bylinetimes.com/edition/80/v...
Last week we co-launched Brave New World? alongside other creator organisations. This groundbreaking new report reveals the stark impact of GenAI on creators’ livelihoods.
Did you hear Lee from Ashworth on R4 Today? He was in belligerent and 'Accidental Partridge' mode this morning. They're all such a bunch of con artists.
Thanks Marc, it's very good. Sad stats but good that the trade orgs are pulling together the information to counter the tech lobby's boosterism.
Wish they'd gone for that for the headline "They’re just fridges working in reverse."
Touts agree Marc. Have you see this yet?
www.the-aop.org/uploads/brav...
Book cover for Drystone: A Life Rebuilt by Kristie De Garis. The design shows a stack of abstract, stone-like shapes in green, yellow, blue, black and purple on a pale background. The title ‘DRYSTONE’ appears at the top, with the subtitle ‘A LIFE REBUILT’ arranged across the stone shapes, and the author’s name at the bottom. The cover is set against a mustard-yellow background.
Just a reminder that if you like my writing on Substack, it’s very likely that you will also like my book ‘Drystone - A Life Rebuilt’
If you buy it at the link below, you support not only me, but indy bookshops too.
uk.bookshop.org/a/15919/9781...
#Books #Writing #Scotland #UK #Reading
This new report shows the havoc AI is already wreaking in the creative sector.
Evidence from 10,000 British creatives shows:
- 58% of photographers have lost work to AI
- 32% of illustrators have lost commissions to AI
- 86% of authors say AI has reduced their earnings
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It's rare to see how lobbyists operate. But the Epstein-Mandelson correspondence shows us what happens all the time: plutocrats and government ministers conspiring against the public interest. This is why all lobbying should be in the public domain, but despite Labour and Con promises, it's not. 🧵
...mechanism that allows creators to earn a living and to retain control over the meaning and integrity of their work. Remove it, and you do not merely damage an industry — you dismantle the conditions under which culture itself can exist.”
#JusticeForCreators #BraveNewWorld #ProtectPromoteInspire
...offers a straightforward, actionable approach that the Government could take to ensure a sustainable and profitable sector in the future.
As Baroness Beeban Kidron writes in her forward,
"This is an existential moment for creators. Copyright is not a technical inconvenience; it is the...
...the unregulated, open doors approach that the UK Gov have adopted to the (largely US based) tech sector.
It details the massive value transfer happening silently all around us, the economic impacts to not only creative workers livelihoods, but also to the UK Treasury, and...
Written by 5 major trade bodies, @the-aop.org, The Association of Illustrators, @societyofauthors.bsky.social, @ism-music.bsky.social and @equityuk.bsky.social. It goes into great detail about the real life, on the ground impacts that...
1/n Today sees the release of a major report into the effect GenAI is having on the UK's £124.6 billion creative sector.
www.the-aop.org/uploads/brav...
😮
It's a brilliant book Peter - but please add an index!
No, no, no @theguardian.com, no.
Why are you paywalling your journalism by forcing a non subscriber to give themselves away to all these vendors and data brokers on your list. Including the likes of Elon's X?
Elon Musk is a white supremacist. Case closed.
🚨The Petition calling for by-elections to be called automatically when MPs defect to another party now has 43,000 signatures! Let’s get the 100,000 needed!
petition.parliament.uk/petitions/73...
Screencap from linked article, p.6, "The problem of disciplinary silos becomes particularly acute in AGI-oriented research due to two factors: its claims to be creating cognates or replacements of human intelligence, and its claims to expertise in many disciplines. In the former case, claims are often made while ignoring de- bates in cognitive science and psychology about the nature of intelligence (Summerfield, 2023; Guest & Martin, 2024; Mitchell, 2024; Van Rooij et al., 2024). In the latter case, achieving AGI is often framed in terms of being able to “re- place” domain experts in various domains—which are then often taken up uncritically by the media without input from domain experts themselves (e.g., Henshall, 2024)." Last sentence highlighted in blue.
Reading "Stop Treating ‘AGI’ as the North-star Goal of AI Research" by Blili-Hamelin et al and particularly struck by this passage:
icml.cc/virtual/2025...
Short 🧵>>
An analysis of X posts from the UK's Department for Science, Innovation and Technology suggests it is overwhelmingly pro-AI.
I analysed the sentiment of every X post from DSIT that mentioned "AI" this year. Of 122 posts, 110 were positive about AI, and only 7 mentioned its downsides.
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🚨 The UK government just published a breakdown of the responses to its consultation on AI & copyright:
- 95% of respondents want AI companies to pay for their training data (made up of 88% saying strengthen copyright law, & 7% saying leave it as is)
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Well done Nadia 👏🏻
Well done Marc 👏🏻
So today I found out that my TED talk ‘This is What a Digital Coup Looks Like’ was TED’s most watched talk of the year.
It’s sort of amazing & terrifying. Because this *is* what a digital coup looks like.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZOo...
The NHS is under pressure to adopt Palantir software. Its founder openly despises the NHS.
You can push back: use our tool to see if your local trust is using the software, then send an email to say no to Palantir
https://goodlaw.social/658abc
The vinyls of our silent album protesting the UK government’s proposals on AI & copyright are being pressed right now and they look beautiful
Through pre-orders, we’ve already sold over half of the limited run of 1,000 copies :)
Order one now at 1000artists.greedbag.com
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