A massive campaign for creator rights is underway, led by renowned actors such as Kevin Bacon and Kate McKinnon. Over 11,500 creators, including actors, writers, and musicians, have co-signed a statement condemning AI companies for using copyrighted materials without permission to train their models.
The statement, initiated by the AI data fair use advocacy group Fairly Trained, asserts that "the unauthorized use of creative works to train generative AI poses a significant and unfair threat to creators' livelihoods, and such practices must be prohibited."
Ed Newton-Rex, CEO of Fairly Trained, told The Guardian that generative AI companies require "talent, computing power, and data" to build their models. While these companies invest heavily in talent and computing power, they "expect to obtain the third element—training data—for free." Notably, Newton-Rex previously worked at Stability AI and left due to dissatisfaction with AI companies "exploiting creators," leading him to found Fairly Trained.
Image source: The image was generated by AI, provided by the image licensing service Midjourney
This rights campaign has received support from various professional organizations, including News Corp and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). In fact, several institutions have filed lawsuits against AI companies for using copyrighted works in training their models. Both RIAA and the News Media Alliance have not only signed the statement but also actively promoted it on social media.
However, some prominent names are notably absent from the list of signatories. Scarlett Johansson, who previously had a dispute with OpenAI for allegedly using her voice without authorization in GPT-4, did not join the coalition. Similarly, actors like Judi Dench and John Cena, who have authorized Meta's AI chat system to replicate their voices, did not participate in this action.
This large-scale protest highlights the growing copyright issues in the development of AI technology and reflects widespread concerns among creators about how AI companies use data. This incident may push the AI industry to establish fairer and more transparent rules for data usage.
