However, the “fair dealing” defence has failed to pass muster with news outlets, who argue that their articles are being used for commercial purposes, meaning tech firms are acting unlawfully.
Iona Silverman, partner at law firm Freeths, says: “As soon as something’s done for a commercial purpose, it’s unlikely to be fair dealing, so I think you’d struggle to run that argument when most of the tech giants are doing this massively for commercial purposes and can afford to pay for the content.”
Publishers including the Daily Mail are considering taking legal action as they seek compensation for the use of their work. Others argue that the responsibility should lie with governments and regulators.
Dr Moiya McTier, spokesperson for the Human Artistry Campaign, says: “I feel this needs to be legislated more than litigated.”
The Government has backtracked on controversial plans to relax copyright laws so that AI companies could “mine” text and data.
But unlike others, including the EU and Japan, it has not laid out laws to clarify how…
