Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)

In supporting my noble friend Lady Kidron, I would like to make one or two things clear. The creative industries are not against AI. Filmmakers, television producers, composers and writers have helped to create the very technology that goes into AI. The creative industries are not trying to pull up the drawbridge, but rather want to monitor what is going across it. They want to police it. As Sir Elton John said, not to do this could amount to a betrayal, because things begin to move very much in increasing volume. He said, importantly, that it is not about people like him; it is about, as the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, said, the next generation—the people who are creating music or writing novels now and getting a pittance for it. They and we do not want to see their work taken and exploited for nothing. I ask noble Lords and the Minister—perhaps they have done this—to think about writing a novel over, say, two or three years, or creating a film, record or disc. You have had to put your own money into it, and then you find that your rights are being stolen. This is burglary. It is nothing else. I declare an interest as a composer. I have had music taken and put into film and adverts, and it is very difficult to stop it. The only way you will stop it is by acting now, before the gate is trampled down by the horses and the stable is empty. It is all very well talking about a vehicle in the future, but we have heard several noble Lords say that the time to act is now. Sir Elton John has said that too, as have many famous composers. It is not just composers at the top of the pop tree; it is classical composers and contemporary composers who make a pittance—perhaps a few hundred pounds. There is a saying in Tin Pan Alley that “Where there’s a hit, there’s a writ”, and that is very true. As soon as you come up with something good, everybody wants it. If this door is left open, we will destroy the future of our creative industries. Let us stop it now.