Baroness Kidron:

Moved by Baroness Kidron

61: After Clause 132, insert the following new Clause—“Compliance with UK copyright law by operators of web crawlers and general-purpose AI models(1) The Secretary of State must by regulations make provision (including any such provision as might be made by Act of Parliament), requiring the operators of web crawlers and general-purpose artificial intelligence (AI) models whose services have links with the United Kingdom within the meaning of section 4(5) of the Online Safety Act 2023 to comply with United Kingdom copyright law, including the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, regardless of the jurisdiction in which the copyright-relevant acts relating to the pre-training, development and operation of those web crawlers and general-purpose AI models take place.(2) Provision made under subsection (1) must apply to the entire lifecycle of a general-purpose AI model, including but not limited to—(a) pre-training and training, (b) fine tuning,(c) grounding and retrieval-augmented generation, and(d) the collection of data for the said purposes.(4) The Secretary of State must lay before Parliament a draft of the statutory instrument containing regulations under subsection (1) within six months of the day on which this Act is passed and the regulations are subject to the affirmative procedure.”Member’s explanatory statementThis amendment is part of a group of amendments that would clarify the requirement for web-crawlers and other “data gatherers” to observe UK copyright law. This is to counter the wide spread theft of IP by AI companies who use it as raw material for their products.

62: After Clause 132, insert the following new Clause—“Transparency of crawler identity, purpose, and segmentation(1) The Secretary of State must by regulations make provision requiring operators of web crawlers and general-purpose artificial intelligence (AI) models whose services have links with the United Kingdom within the meaning of section 4(5) of the Online Safety Act 2023 to disclose information regarding the identity of crawlers used by them or by third parties on their behalf, including but not limited to—(a) the name of the crawler,(b) the legal entity responsible for the crawler,(c) the specific purposes for which each crawler is used,(d) the legal entities to which operators provide data scraped by the crawlers they operate, and(e) a single point of contact to enable copyright owners to communicate with them and to lodge complaints about the use of their copyrighted works.(2) The information disclosed under subsection (1) must be available on an easily accessible platform and updated at the same time as any change.(3) The Secretary of State must by regulations make provision requiring operators of web crawlers and general-purpose AI models to deploy distinct crawlers for different purposes, including but not limited to—(a) web indexing for search engine results pages,(b) general-purpose AI model pre-training, and(c) retrieval-augmented generation.(4) The Secretary of State must by regulations make provision requiring operators of web crawlers and general-purpose AI models to ensure that the exclusion of a crawler by a copyright owner does not negatively impact the findability of the copyright owner’s content in a search engine.(5) The Secretary of State must lay before Parliament a draft of the statutory instrument containing regulations under this section within six months of the day on which this Act is passed and the regulations are subject to the affirmative procedure.”Member’s explanatory statementThis amendment is part of a group of amendments that would clarify the requirement for web-crawlers and other “data gatherers” to observe UK copyright law. This amendment requires the SoS to set out strict transparency requirements for web crawlers so that it is possible for IP holders to identify the owners of webcrawlers.

63: After Clause 132, insert the following new Clause—“Transparency of copyrighted works scraped(1) The Secretary of State must by regulations make provision requiring operators of web crawlers and general-purpose artificial intelligence (AI) models whose services have links with the United Kingdom within the meaning of section 4(5) of the Online Safety Act 2023 to disclose information regarding text and data used in the pre-training, training and fine-tuning of general-purpose AI models, including but not limited to— (a) the URLs accessed by crawlers deployed by them or by third parties on their behalf or from whom they have obtained text or data,(b) the text and data used for the pre-training, training and fine-tuning, including the type and provenance of the text and data and the means by which it was obtained,(c) information that can be used to identify individual works, and(d) the timeframe of data collection.(2) The disclosure of information under subsection (1) must be updated on a monthly basis in such form as the regulations may prescribe and be published in such manner as the regulations may prescribe so as to ensure that it is accessible to copyright owners upon request.(3) The Secretary of State must lay before Parliament a draft of the statutory instrument containing regulations under subsection (1) within six months of the day on which this Act is passed and the regulations are subject to the affirmative procedure.”Member’s explanatory statementThis amendment is part of a group of amendments that would clarify the requirement for web-crawlers and other “data gatherers” to observe UK copyright law. This amendment requires the SoS to set out transparency requirements that would allow copyright holders to identify when and from where their work has been taken.

64: After Clause 132, insert the following new Clause—“Enforcement(1) The Secretary of State must by regulations make provision requiring the Information Commission (under section 114 of the Data Protection Act 2018) (“the Commissioner”) to monitor and secure compliance with the duties under sections (Transparency of crawler identity, purpose, and segmentation) and (Transparency of copyrighted works scraped) (“the duties”) by an operator of a web crawler or general-purpose artificial intelligence (AI) model whose service has links with the United Kingdom within the meaning of section 4(5) of the Online Safety Act 2023 (“a relevant operator”), including but not limited to the following—(a) the regulations must provide for the Commissioner to have the power by written notice (an "information notice”) to require a relevant operator to provide the Commissioner with information that the Commissioner reasonably requires for the purposes of investigating a suspected failure to comply with the duties;(b) the regulations must provide for the Commissioner to have the power by written notice (an "assessment notice") to require and to permit the Commissioner to carry out an assessment of whether a relevant operator has complied or is complying with the duties and to require a relevant operator to do any of the acts set out in section 146(2) of the Data Protection Act 2018;(c) the regulations must provide that where the Commissioner is satisfied that a relevant operator has failed, or is failing to comply with the duties, the Commissioner may give the relevant operator a written notice (an "enforcement notice") which requires it—(i) to take steps specified in the notice, or(ii) to refrain from taking steps specified in the notice;(d) the regulations must provide that where the Commissioner is satisfied that a relevant operator has failed or is failing to comply with the duties or has failed to comply with an information notice, an assessment notice or an enforcement notice, the Commissioner may, by written notice (a "penalty notice"), require the person to pay to the Commissioner an amount in sterling specified in the notice, the maximum amount of the penalty that may be imposed by a penalty notice being the "higher maximum amount" as defined in section 157 of the Data Protection Act 2018; (e) the regulations may provide for the procedure and rights of appeal in relation to the giving of an information notice, an assessment notice, an enforcement notice or a penalty notice.(2) The regulations must provide that any failure to comply with the duties by a relevant operator shall be directly actionable by any copyright owner who is adversely affected by such failure, and that such copyright owner will be entitled to recover damages for any loss suffered and to injunctive relief.(3) The regulations must provide that the powers of the Commissioner and the rights of a copyright owner will apply in relation to a relevant operator providing a service from outside the United Kingdom (as well as such one provided from within the United Kingdom).(4) The Secretary of State must lay before Parliament a draft of the statutory instrument containing the regulations under this section within six months of the day on which this Act is passed and the regulations are subject to the affirmative procedure.”Member’s explanatory statementThis amendment is part of a group of amendments that would clarify the requirement for web-crawlers and other “data gatherers” to observe UK copyright law. This amendment creates an enforcement procedure in line with the Data Protection Act 2018.

65: After Clause 132, insert the following new Clause—“Technical solutions(1) The Secretary of State must conduct a review of the technical solutions that may be adopted by copyright owners and by the operators of web crawlers and general-purpose artificial intelligence (AI) models whose services have links with the United Kingdom within the meaning of section 4(5) of the Online Safety Act 2023 to prevent and to identify the unauthorised scraping or other unauthorised use of copyright owners’ text and data.(2) Within 18 months of the day on which this Act is passed, the Secretary of State must report on such technical solutions and must issue guidance as to the technical solutions to be adopted and other recommendations for the protection of the interests of copyright owners.”

Amendments 61 to 65 agreed.

Amendment 66 not moved.