Artificial Intelligence

European news publishers are deeply concerned about the third draft code of practice published last week by the European Commission. The draft includes a chapter about how AI providers must comply with EU copyright law which has unfortunately gone from bad to worse: it contains serious errors relating to the interpretation of AI and copyright law.

The European Alliance of News Agencies (EANA) expresses serious concerns about the latest draft of the EU Code of Practice for General Purpose AI. The Alliance is warning that its vague language and reduced obligations weaken protections for rightsholders. For news agencies the proposed technical solutions for rights management are unsuitable.

Not fit for purpose: Writers, translators and journalists of the European text sector express strong opposition to the Third Draft of the EU’s Code of Practice under the AI Act’s implementation.

The Syndicat national de l'édition (SNE), the Société des Gens de Lettres (SGDL) and the Syndicat national des auteurs et des compositeurs (SNAC) have taken legal action against Meta before the 3rd chamber of the Paris Court of Justice for the massive use of copyrighted works to train its generative artificial intelligence model., without authorisation of authors and publishers.

Spain and China have introduced strict new regulations requiring AI-generated content to be clearly labelled to combat misinformation and protect digital integrity. Spain’s proposed law imposes heavy fines for non-compliance, while China mandates both visible and metadata-based labelling to ensure transparency in AI-generated media.

CEPIC attended the Unmasking AI – Making the EU AI Act Succeed event in Brussels, where industry leaders discussed the urgent need for transparency, accountability, and fair compensation in AI model training. Patrick Lacroix, CEO of Belga, highlighted the risks of unchecked AI scraping and emphasised that without stronger protections in the AI Act, rightsholders will continue to face legal uncertainty, loss of control, and unfair exploitation of their content.

As a key stakeholder in the creative industries, CEPIC is deeply concerned with the envisaged alteration of copyright law in the UK which we think is presently perfectly fit for purpose to incentivise licensing agreements between AI providers and rightsholders and to provide a sustainable environment to European innovation and SMEs. CEPIIC's submission provides insight into the challenges faced by the image sector, specifically in relation to the options put forward by the government as well as insights into the on-going process in the EU and experience with opt-out mechanisms for rightsholders.

The UK’s creative industries have launched the "Make It Fair" campaign to raise awareness of the threat posed by AI models scraping creative content without permission or payment. As the government’s copyright consultation closes, national and regional news brands are uniting to urge the public to take action, calling on policymakers to uphold strong copyright protections and ensure fair compensation for creators.