In these cruel and ugly times, you might think there are more important things to worry about than UK copyright law. And you’d be right, of course. But, at the same time, the biggest assault on creative rights for centuries is happening under our noses. This is another part of the landscape of techno-feudalism and greed in which whole populations are manipulated, elections are controlled, climate data is suppressed, women’s rights are rolled back and reality assaulted. So, bear with me.
On 19th June, the Data (Use and Access) Bill received Royal Assent. It was the ignominious end to a saga that began on 17th December, when the government launched a consultation into the illegal scraping of authors’ works. The idea was to come up with proposals for how to regulate AI and protect UK copyright law, the oldest in the world. The Statute of Anne was passed in 1710 and enshrined the principle that the creator of an original work of imagination owns it. Simple, you’d think. Except the essence of the government’s proposals was to put the onus on writers, composers, illustrators, playwrights and academics to stop AI from stealing their work. The government listened, star-struck, when tech companies claimed it was impossible to find a way of paying for other people’s work.
Put simply, without original work there will, ultimately, be nothing left for the tech companies to steal. Put financially, the creative industries bring some £127bn to the UK economy every year. Writers and artists pay their taxes; we don’t lurk offshore like many of the tech companies, and the soft power of the arts is one of the UK’s greatest strengths. Yet when pressed, the government admitted it hadn’t even commissioned an economic impact study to discover how much would be lost in the rush to embrace unregulated AI.
For six months, the bill bounced backwards and forwards between the Commons and the Lords—peers from all parties united to condemn the plans—until the inevitable happened and this unfair, theft-legitimising, anti-creatives bill was passed.
Writers are not completely against AI (despite it being catastrophic for the environment and a catalyst for misogynist ideologies, as Laura Bates lays bare in her excellent new book, The New Age of Sexism). This technology is here to stay, and we cannot avoid it. Regulated AI can and will do good in the world. But we have to make a distinction between AI that might be used in brilliant ways, such as medical diagnosis and innovation, and theft. If you use ChatGPT to write your novel, you haven’t “written” anything. It’s plagiarism. It’s like paying someone to go to the gym for you, then claiming you are now a tip-top athlete.
This battle has been lost, but the fight for fairness continues.
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Speaking of athletes, I was hopeless at sports at school. I was the last girl to be picked for the netball or hockey teams, I couldn’t catch or hit or run, and I spent much of the 1960s and 1970s dreaming up ways to get out of PE.
But, now I’m older, I find I love watching sport—some sports, at any rate (not cricket!). I’m especially keen on those big competitions: Wimbledon, Le Tour de France, the World Athletics Championships and, in July, the 2025 Women’s Euros. As I write this, the Lionesses are warming up for their opening match against France, ready to defend their 2022 Euros title, having beaten Jamaica 7-0 in a friendly at the end of June.
Thirteen of the players in Sarina Wiegman’s squad have returned, including captain Leah Williamson, 2022 final goal scorers Chloe Kelly and Ella Toone, and the winner of the Golden Boot, Beth Mead. Others are making their England debuts. But what is joyous is that the “girls” are now household names; the advertising is immense; the effect of the Lionesses’ success on girls’ football up and down the country is incredible. And they stand on the shoulders of giants, from the great striker Lily Parr in the 1920s to Alex Scott in the 2000s. Finally, after all those years of hurt, football is genuinely the national game.
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Ours is a multi-generational household and has been for nearly three decades. My parents lived with us in their end years and I still care for my incredible 95-year-old mother-in-law, Granny Rosie. So, when our teenagers struck out in the world, I never had to cope with an empty nest.
But, for the first time ever, I’m experiencing some of that. My daughter, her partner and their two-year-old came to stay last year while their house was being renovated. Four generations under one roof. Building projects being what they are, winter became spring, spring became summer. Their second baby arrived on 1st June. But, then suddenly, their house was ready and we all drove in convoy from west to east Sussex to help them move in. They’re not far away, and I’ll still be granny each Thursday during July and August, but our house feels so empty, too quiet without them. I miss the trucks underfoot and tiny socks, I miss singing “Wind the Bobbin Up” and stories at bedtime. Nothing for it but to get back to writing the next novel.
