The Data Bill

A bill to basically make the use of data easier. My notes and links; I was originally interested in the identity validation services it envisaged but the “copyright/mine for ever people” see an opportunity to make more money. NB Arguments between industrial music and big tech are pretty unattractive, and usually ignore the interests and value created by fans.

About the bill they say, “A bill to make provision about access to customer data and business data; to make provision about services consisting of the use of information to ascertain and verify facts about individuals; to make provision about the recording and sharing, and keeping of registers, of information relating to apparatus in streets; to make provision about the keeping and maintenance of registers of births and deaths; to make provision for the regulation of the processing of information relating to identified or identifiable living individuals; to make provision about privacy and electronic communications; to establish the Information Commission; to make provision about information standards for health and social care; to make provision about the grant of smart meter communication licences; to make provision about the disclosure of information to improve public service delivery; to make provision about the retention of information by providers of internet services in connection with investigations into child deaths; to make provision about providing information for purposes related to the carrying out of independent research into online safety matters; to make provision about the retention of biometric data; to make provision about services for the provision of electronic signatures, electronic seals and other trust services; to make provision about the creation and solicitation of purported intimate images and for connected purposes.”

Links

1. https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3825
2. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/digital-identity
3. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/data-use-and-access-bill-factsheets
4. https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/media-centre/news-and-blogs/2025/02/information-commissioner-s-updated-response-to-the-data-use-and-access-dua-bill/
5. https://pressgazette.co.uk/news/government-defeated-lords-copyright-ai-scraping/
6. https://iapp.org/resources/article/uk-data-protection-reform-an-overview, from the IAPP, focus on business effort to comply

And on AI and Copyright

1. https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3519
2. https://www.fieldfisher.com/en/services/intellectual-property/intellectual-property-blog/uk-ai-regulation-bill-scrapped-for-now-but-hopes-of-a-resurrection-with-new-government June 2024
3. https://pressgazette.co.uk/news/government-defeated-lords-copyright-ai-scraping/ unusually interested in Journalism, but given we have a choice between owned by media Barons, or authoritarian states, once again I ask where is the fan interest.

I am not yet really caught up on the state of the parliamentary debate, but the usual rich suspects are upset.

1. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/feb/26/prioritise-artists-over-tech-ai-copyright-debate-mps-say
2. https://www.ft.com/content/b98979ba-6ae7-4490-97a9-127381440b1f

As in many other countries, the British government is currently struggling to realign principle and practice and update its intellectual property laws for the AI age. As the protests show, this is not easy. The creative industries are of critical importance to the British economy. By the government’s numbers, they contributed £124bn in gross added value to the economy in 2023, about 5 per cent of the total. On the other hand, the government is desperate to position the UK as an AI-friendly powerhouse, behind the US and China. John Thornhill FT

I believe the creative industries are net importers to the UK economy and have been collecting the stats to prove it but not been able to update my earlier blog pieces tagged:music.

I commented on the attempts of trading blocs to compete through AI regulation, On the AI action summit.

Here is an early piece about Simon Indelicate’s speech to a 2012 Pictfor meeting, where I wrote on copyright and the public interest.

And in the EU

1. https://artificialintelligenceact.eu/ and https://artificialintelligenceact.eu/high-level-summary/
2. Euractiv has a copyright tag. , but the most recent is appropriately behind a paywall. 😄

I should start with the EU’s summary page.

What does the EFF say?

1. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/how-we-think-about-copyright-and-ai-art-0, typically nuanced, “Done right, copyright law is supposed to encourage new creativity. Stretching it to outlaw tools like AI image generators—or to effectively put them in the exclusive hands of powerful economic actors who already use that economic muscle to squeeze creators—would have the opposite effect. “

Judith Ratcliffe

I found these comments on Linked in Judith Ratcliffe,

1. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/back-issue-11-red-flags-research-dcms-desire-erode-judith
2. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/back-issue-10-data-wrong-direction-dcms-reforms-law-judith
3. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/back-issue-12-rotten-redefinitions-consent-data-ratcliffe-cipp-e

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I have three problems with the current copyright laws

1. It’s duration is excessive, creative artefacts will never be available as public domain to the fans they were created for.
2. There is no dimension in which the value created by fans is shared.
3. The laws are the means by which capitalism commodifies the art! It’s not really written for startup bands, or theatre groups!