The future of the Data (Use and Access) Bill hangs in the balance as the House of Lords and House of Commons continue to disagree on amendments addressing AI and copyright.

We recently reported (see here) on the House of Commons rejecting amendments from the House of Lords that imposed transparency requirements on AI companies in relation to their use of copyright-protected works. Last week, an alternative amendment from the House of Lords was also rejected, which would have required the Government to, among other things, publish a draft Bill within three months “containing legislative proposals to provide transparency to copyright owners regarding the use of their copyright works as data inputs for AI models made available by relevant traders”.

Setting out the Government’s position, the Minister for Data Protection and Telecoms, Sir Chris Bryant, explained that the Government did not intend to undermine the rights of intellectual property owners and echoed statements from the Secretaries of State for Science, Innovation and Technology and Culture, Media and Sport that indicated regret that the Government had signalled an opt-out system as being its preferred approach in its consultation on AI and copyright (discussed in more detail here).

More fundamentally, Sir Chris made the point that the Data (Use and Access) Bill was “never intended to be about artificial intelligence, intellectual property and copyright”. These are matters, he explained, that are addressed in the separate consultation, and to insert them into this Bill meant holding up the introduction of its many important provisions (some of which we discuss here).

The Bill returned to the House of Lords the following day, where Baroness Kidron re-introduced (or, in parliamentary parlance, “insisted”) on her earlier amendment. Rejecting suggestions that she was hijacking the Bill and even prepared to collapse it, Baroness Kidron reasserted her position that “the Government are aware of the stealing, aware of the law, and aware that creative work morally and financially belongs to its creator. The Government are aware that the success of creative industries depends in large part on the copyright regime, and that mass theft is breaking the press, the arts and other IP-rich businesses, and hampering the UK AI community. Inaction is not neutral. It is hurting our community and it is hurting the Government’s future prosperity”.

The amendment passed in the House of Lords (again). What that means is that it will return to the House of Commons where, as Baroness Kidron pointed out, three options are available: (1) it accepts the amendment; (2) it replaces the amendment with its own; or (3) the Bill could fall. For her part, she has made it clear that she will accept anything that the Commons does and will not press her case again in the Lords.

While disagreements between the two chambers of Parliament are not uncommon, we are entering into highly exceptional territory where the Government has now suffered five defeats in the Lords. It is not entirely clear what will happen next and, at least according to the Minister in the Lords, “there is a danger that the Bill will collapse if the Lords continues in its current form”.

The Bill returns to the House of Commons tomorrow.