Joint Statement from European Authors and Performers
A coalition of European authors, performers, and other legal professionals has issued a united statement. The third project Code of Practice of the European Union addresses the general purpose of artificial intelligence.
This initiative occurs as the EU continues to articulate the guiding principles for its regulations on AI, aiming to establish a normative framework for artificial intelligence systems operating within the bloc. The proposed regulations emphasize transparency and copyright-related rules, particularly concerning AI models deemed “systemic risks.”
Concerns from Creative Coalition
However, the creative coalition, including IFPI, which represents the global sound recording industry, has declared the third project as “completely unacceptable,” contending it “undermines the goals of the AI law, contradicts EU law, and disregards the intentions of the EU legislator,” according to their statement released on March 28.
Under the previous draft of the GPAI practice code, suppliers of GPai models—such as Openai, Google, Anthropic, Meta, Cohere, and Mistral—were required to implement copyright policies in compliance with EU law. However, the latest project merely “encourages” signers to publish a copyright policy, removing the previous obligation.
“Regrettably, the third project fails to meet the adequacy requirements set forth by EU law and should not be approved without substantial improvements,” stated the coalition.
“The proposal concerning the responsibilities of GPAI suppliers necessitates proper verification to ensure that third-party datasets used to train their models do not infringe copyrights.”
Coalition of EU Creators and Rightsholders
While the third project still mandates AI companies to take “reasonable measures” to inform regulators about the web crawlers they utilize and the processing of Robot.txt protocols, it eliminates the earlier requirement to publicly disclose this information.
One provision under the Code of Practice stipulates that signed contracts for rights-holding entities must be established to address complaints regarding non-compliance. Nonetheless, the third project includes a clause permitting companies to “refuse to file a complaint.”
“The measure for GPAI suppliers to establish copyright complaints involves only the creation of a mechanism for lodging complaints about the Code of Practice, lacking references to GPAI suppliers’ actions to resolve them, rendering it a mere formality rather than an effective compliance tool,” the coalition stated.
They further emphasized: “The Code of Practice should include appropriate measures to facilitate and mandate GPAI models to respect two fundamental copyright principles: to seek prior permission and refrain from unauthorized use of copyrighted materials.
“The current proposal regarding the liabilities of GPAI suppliers for implementing due diligence to ensure that third-party datasets used for training their models do not infringe copyrights is inadequate.
“This not only reduces significant obligations for proper vetting under EU Copyright Law and AI Law, but also risks exposing GPAI suppliers to copyright violations.”
They reiterated that the third project “continues to render meaningless the rights of authors, performers, and other copyright holders to determine how they reserve their rights,” and “provides no substantial guidance for GPAI suppliers to adhere to such reservations.”
The group underscored the necessity for a framework for a “sufficiently detailed summary of the content used for training,” enabling authors, performers, and other rights advocates to effectively enforce and assure compliance with their rights.
The coalition comprises AAPA (Audiovisual Anti-Piracy Alliance), CISAC (International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers), ECSA (European Composer and Songwriter Alliance), EMMA (European Musical Managers Alliance), FIM (International Federation of Musicians), GESAC (European Grouping of Societies of Authors and Composers), ICMP, IFPI (International Federation of Phonographic Industry), IMPALA, and IMPF.
The European Commission is expected to release the fourth and final draft in May.
