Peers vote to defy government over copyright threat from AI

Defiant peers have delivered an ultimatum to the government – calling on it to offer artists copyright protection against artificial intelligence companies or risk losing a key piece of legislation.
The government suffered a fifth defeat in the House of Lords over controversial plans to allow the AI companies to train their models using copyrighted material.
Peers voted by 221 to 116 on Wednesday to insist on an amendment to force AI companies to be transparent about what material they use to train their models.
We will not back down and we will not quietly go away. This is just the beginning
Elton John
Speaking at an awards event after the vote, Elton John said copyright protection was an 'existential issue' for artists and urged the government 'to do the right thing'.
He added: 'We will not let the government forget their promise to support our creative industries. We will not back down and we will not quietly go away. This is just the beginning.'
Wednesday night's vote prolongs a lengthy standoff between the Commons and Lords over the data bill, which has been used as a vehicle by campaigners to oppose the government's proposed copyright reforms.
Resistance to the changes in the Lords has been led by Beeban Kidron, a cross-bench peer and film director, whose amendments have been repeatedly backed by the upper chamber.
The data bill now faces the prospect of being shelved unless the Commons accepts the Kidron amendment or proposes an alternative.
Maggie Jones, the Lords minister for the digital economy and online safety, had urged peers to vote against the Kidron amendment after the government offered last-minute concessions in an attempt to stave off another defeat.
Before the vote, Jones said peers were 'choosing whether they want the entire bill to fall' and that by voting for Kidron's amendment they would 'countenance the unprecedented – to try to collapse a bill that does nothing to weaken copyright law' but included other important measures including to combat sexually explicit deepfake images.
Kidron told peers: 'This is our last chance to ask the government to provide a meaningful solution' and urged ministers to set out concrete steps to subject AI companies to copyright rules.
'It is not fair, not reasonable, not just, balanced or any other such word to stand in the way of the creative industries identifying those who are taking their work or their property. It is not neutral – it is aiding and abetting what we have called in the house widespread theft.
'We have asked privately and repeatedly on the floor of both houses what is the government going to do to stop the work of creatives from being stolen right now? The answer is nothing.'
Several peers pushed back against the suggestion that the Lords' move was unprecedented and said the government was itself breaking precedent by not compromising. Tim Clement-Jones, the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for the digital economy, offered his party's 'staunch support' for Kidron's amendment.
The Lords' move puts the data bill in double insistence territory. This means the Commons and Lords cannot reach agreement over legislation. In this scenario, under parliamentary convention, the bill would fall unless ministers accept the rebel amendment or offer an alternative. A bill falling is extremely rare but not without precedent – it happened to the European parliamentary elections bill in the 1997-98 session.
Under parliamentary convention, the Commons has primacy as the elected house, and in rare instances where the Lords refuses to back down ministers can resort to the Parliament Act to pass the bill in the next parliamentary session. This would significantly delay the legislation.
In concessions offered to peers on Tuesday night, the government said it would commit to publishing further technical reports on the future of AI and copyright regulation and do so within nine months instead of 12.
'A number of noble Lords have voiced concerns during ping-pong that the government is not listening. This is simply not the case,' Jones said in her letter, reiterating that ministers regretted the way the Lords rebels had gone about the changes.
Jones stressed that the data bill was expected to generate £10bn of economic benefit by updating data protection law and that it would improve online safety, including by strengthening powers to ask social media companies to preserve data after the death of a child.
Kidron said: 'It is in the gift of the government to accept the amendment, or put something meaningful in its place. They have failed to listen to the Lords, they have failed to listen to the creative sector, they have failed to listen to their own backbenchers.'
Under the government's proposals, AI companies would be allowed to train their models using copyrighted work without permission unless the owner opts out. The plans have been fiercely criticised by creators and publishers including high-profile artists such as Paul McCartney and Tom Stoppard.
Peter Kyle, the technology secretary, has said he regretted the decision to launch a consultation on changing copyright law with the opt-out system as the 'preferred option'. Campaigners against the changes believe that there is resistance inside Downing Street to making more substantial concessions.

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

Business Insider

10 minutes ago

• Business Insider

OpenAI cofounder Greg Brockman says vibe coding has taken away some of the fun parts of being an engineer

OpenAI's cofounder said vibe coding has left human engineers to do quality control. On an episode of Stripe's "Cheeky Pint" podcast uploaded last week, OpenAI's cofounder and president, Greg Brockman, said that AI coding will only get better. But until then, it's taking away some parts of software engineering that he said are enjoyable. "What we're going to see is AIs taking more and more of the drudgery, more of this like pain, more of the parts that are not very fun for humans," Brockman said. He added, "So far, the vibe coding has actually taken a lot of code that is actually quite fun." He said that the state of AI coding has left humans to review and deploy code, which is "not fun at all." Brockman added that he is "hopeful" for progress in these other areas, to the point that we end up with a " full AI coworker" that could handle delegated tasks. Changing engineering landscape Using AI to write code, dubbed " vibe coding" by OpenAI cofounder Andrej Karpathy, has skyrocketed this year. Engineers and novices alike are using tools like Microsoft's Copilot, Cursor, and Windsurf to write code, develop games, and even build websites from scratch. Vibe coding has already started changing how much Big Tech and venture capital value people with software engineering expertise. In March, Y Combinator's CEO, Gary Tan, said that vibe coding is set to transform the startup landscape. He said that what would've once taken "50 or 100" engineers to build can now be accomplished by a team of 10, "when they are fully vibe coders." Earlier this month, Business Insider reported that AI coding is no longer a nice-to-have skill. Job listings from Visa, Reddit, DoorDash, and a slew of startups showed that the companies explicitly require vibe coding experience or familiarity with AI code generators like Cursor and Bolt. Still, some in tech circles say leaning on it heavily is short-sighted and the job is being trivialized. Bob McGrew, the former chief research officer at OpenAI, said that while product managers can make "really cool prototypes" with vibe coding, human engineers will still be brought in to "rewrite it from scratch." "If you are given a code base that you don't understand — this is a classic software engineering question — is that a liability or is it an asset? Right? And the classic answer is that it's a liability," McGrew said of software made with vibe coding. GitHub's CEO, Thomas Dohmke, said that vibe coding may also slow down experienced coders. On a podcast episode released last week, he said that a worst-case scenario is when a developer is forced to provide feedback in natural language when they already know how to do it in a programming language. That would be "basically replacing something that I can do in three seconds with something that might potentially take three minutes or even longer," Dohmke said.

Bloomberg

15 minutes ago

• Bloomberg

Live: FTSE 100, Pound Fall as Traders Weigh US Strikes on Iran

Advent's statements on the takeover hint at the value they think there is in Spectris, which hasn't been reflected in its share price. It notes that Spectris respositioned back in 2018 and in the process became a 'more focused and higher quality business.' Since then, shares in Spectris have only risen by around 20%, including the jump seen this year. Advent also has a track record of buying up UK industrial firms. It snapped up electronics firm Laird in 2018, aerospace company Cobham in 2020 and defence contractor Ultra Electronics in 2022.

Yahoo

27 minutes ago

• Yahoo

Lenovo Ranks 8th in the Gartner® Supply Chain Top 25 for 2025

MORRISVILLE, N.C., June 23, 2025--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Lenovo has once again secured a position in the Gartner Supply Chain Top 25 for 2025, recognizing its excellence in supply chain operations and placing eighth, up two places from last year, among global leaders across various industries, including pharmaceutical, automotive, FMCG, and technology. The Gartner ranking highlights companies that consistently demonstrate leadership in supply chain strategy and execution. Lenovo's mission to bring Smarter AI to every household and every industry applies equally to the digital transformation of its own business operations, where AI plays a central role in enhancing efficiency and building long-term resilience across global operations and the company's supply chain. "At Lenovo, our mission is to create Smarter AI for All," said Che Min Tu, SVP and Group Operations Officer. "To build the kind of technology our customers expect, we need to lead by example within our own business. By integrating AI across our global supply chain, we're not only able to support the growing business demand, but also improve the customer experience, and cut order-to-ship times in what is arguably one of the most complex and dynamic global business environments." The company's digital transformation journey over the past eight years has focused on streamlining planning, enhancing procurement and supplier collaboration, and improving logistics visibility. These changes also supported Lenovo's environmental goals by aligning supply chain improvements with its Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) commitments. AI is now accelerating these gains. Lenovo teams utilize AI-powered tools for faster decision-making and deeper insights, while AI agents provide targeted support to resolve issues efficiently. This work has been undertaken by a team of over 75 Lenovo researchers, including 22 PhDs, who developed a set of AI tools designed to support the objectives of Lenovo's global supply chain. Within Lenovo's global supply chain, AI has significantly enhanced planning accuracy and accountability, leading to more efficient and cost-effective operations. The introduction of intelligent production scheduling has streamlined the scheduling process, allowing for quicker and more responsive production decisions. "The use of AI in our systems is ultimately benefiting our customers. AI-driven customer sentiment analysis has provided deeper insights into customer needs and recurring issues, resulting in improved customer satisfaction and better warranty-related performance," said Guan Wei, SVP and Head of Global Supply Chain. Lenovo's supply chain spans over 30 manufacturing sites in 11 markets across the Asia Pacific, China, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, North America, and South America regions. In February 2025, Lenovo, in partnership with Alat, broke ground on a new manufacturing base in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Scheduled to come online in 2026, this new facility will manufacture millions of laptops, desktops, and servers for the region. Lenovo's global manufacturing footprint provides the ultimate flexibility and resilience, enabling the company to respond quickly and navigate any global situation effectively. Ben Massie, Vice President of Global Supply Chain for Lenovo's Infrastructure Solutions Group, said: "As supply chains become more complex, staying resilient is no longer enough. Lenovo is now focused on becoming 'anti-fragile'—not just withstanding disruption but getting stronger because of it." About the Gartner Supply Chain Top 25 ranking and methodology The Supply Chain Top 25 ranking comprises two main components: business performance and opinion. Business performance in the form of public financial and ESG (environmental, social, governance) data provides a view into how companies have performed in the past three years, while the opinion component offers an eye to future potential and reflects leadership in the supply chain community. These two components are combined into a total composite score. Gartner derives a list of companies from a combination of the Fortune Global 500 and the Forbes Global 2000. In an effort to maintain the list of companies evaluated at a manageable level, a general annual revenue threshold of $15 billion has been applied and companies without physical supply chains are excluded. Read the full Gartner Supply Chain Top 25 for 2025 Report here. Gartner Press Release: Gartner Announces 2025 Rankings of the Global Supply Chain Top 25, June 18th, 2025. Gartner Insights: The Gartner Supply Chain Top 25 for 2025. GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner's Research & Advisory organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved. About Lenovo Lenovo is a US$69 billion revenue global technology powerhouse, ranked #248 in the Fortune Global 500, and serving millions of customers every day in 180 markets. Focused on a bold vision to deliver Smarter Technology for All, Lenovo has built on its success as the world's largest PC company with a full-stack portfolio of AI-enabled, AI-ready, and AI-optimized devices (PCs, workstations, smartphones, tablets), infrastructure (server, storage, edge, high performance computing and software defined infrastructure), software, solutions, and services. Lenovo's continued investment in world-changing innovation is building a more equitable, trustworthy, and smarter future for everyone, everywhere. Lenovo is listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange under Lenovo Group Limited (HKSE: 992) (ADR: LNVGY). To find out more visit and read about the latest news via our StoryHub. View source version on Contacts Stuart GillT: +44 (0)7917 437 532E: sgill@ Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data