The Society of Authors, in collaboration with other creator-led organisations has just launched a groundbreaking report about the impact of Gen AI – Brave New World? Justice for creators in the age of GenAI
This major study of GenAI’s impact on creative work, calls on the government to immediately implement CLEAR, a new regulatory framework to protect the livelihoods of authors, illustrators, musicians, performers, and photographers, or risk the decimation of the UK’s £124.6 billion creative industries sector.
C – Consent first: clarify the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA) to ensure creators’ works cannot be used to train GenAI models without explicit, prior consent
L – Licensing, not scraping: support a statutory licensing scheme for AI training that provides a lawful, transparent route for AI developers to access creative works, ensuring fair payment and attribution to creators
E – Ethical use of training data: create enforceable ethical standards for the sourcing, curation and application of training data
A – Accountability: about which copyright-protected works have been used, how they were obtained and whether they influenced outputs.
R – Remuneration and Rights: creators’ work should be attributed and paid for.
The CLEAR framework reflects what creators are asking for, not a rejection of technology, but clear rules that allow innovation to develop in a way that respects their creative work.
The Report
The report uses evidence from over 10,000 creators and is published by the Society of Authors (SoA), the Independent Society of Musicians (ISM), Equity, the Association of Illustrators (AOI), and the Association of Photographers (AOP). It reveals the erosion of creators’ bread-and-butter work in an increasingly AI-driven world.
The findings are stark, showing creators losing income and jobs and having their work stolen across every creative discipline
Literary Case Study
Sam Fake features as the literary case study (you really couldn’t make it up, could you?! For anyone who is arriving to this site for the first time, to explain, with my other hat on, I’m the current Chair of the Society of Authors.)
Your support is needed
Brave New World? advocates for stronger platform protections against AI-generated copycat publications, please read it and share:
Download the report here
If you’re in the UK,write to your MP to make your voice heard. You can find a very easy email tool here
Do follow The Society of Authors across their multiple platforms, and JOIN us, we’re stronger together and there’s never been a more important time for creators to unite.
HELP GIVE CREATORS A VOICE
You can follow the SoA here:
https://www.instagram.com/thesocietyofauthors
https://www.facebook.com/TheSocietyofAuthors
https://bsky.app/profile/societyofauthors.bsky.social
https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-society-of-authors/
The SoA is the largest union for writers, translators, script writers and illustrators in the UK, with over 12,500 members – it has an Irish group, and a strong presence in Northern Ireland – look out for events there – the Irish Writers Union acts for writers in Ireland across a range of issues and works with partner unions in the UK and Europe.
