WE ARE witnessing the industrial-scale theft of performers’ and creatives’ work as Big Tech’s AI is pitted against our world-leading creative industries.

The government’s preferred copyright “opt-out” would essentially legalise this theft.

But Equity is fighting back: through our industrial bargaining, political lobbying, campaigning and contract advice. Every new collective agreement struck strengthens AI protections; every individual contract clause inserted protects another artist; every politician who listens understands that unfettered AI data scraping is immoral.

At the heart of our argument is transparency, consent and remuneration.

Transparency so that artists are made aware how their work will be used; consent so that they decide whether they agree to this use or not; and remuneration so that they are properly paid for such use.

The UK’s creative industries are worth billions to the economy each year (around £123 billion in the 12 months leading up to December 2024) and are recognised by this government as “growth-driving” sectors.

But inaction on AI – and proposals to exempt creatives’ work from copyright protections – undermines the current and future potential of our entertainment and performing arts. It could destroy our members’ jobs.

AI models are trained on Equity members’ work: their likenesses, their voices, their performances. This data is often scraped from the internet or old recordings and turned into “training material” — a euphemism for unauthorised use.

The product of performance professionals’ work is an essential part of the means of production for big AI models, but it is too often stolen.

Suddenly, actors are being digitally resurrected without permission. Singers’ voices are being used to create new songs, or even entire albums, of songs they never sang.

Voice artists are finding their speech patterns used to narrate audiobooks, advertisements and even train announcements they never agreed to be part of. And they’re not getting paid. Not even asked.

This isn’t innovation. It’s exploitation.

Just as with any technological advancement, AI must be harnessed to benefit workers, not be allowed to proliferate at their expense. We need to understand AI for what it is: not just a new tool, but a new mode of ownership.

If left unchecked, it centralises power in the hands of a few corporations, while stripping away the agency, dignity, and income of working performers as well as the rights to their own work.

Rights and remuneration
AI is not so new and innovative that current rights don’t apply – from EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to Intellectual Property to Copyright legislation. AI cannot be allowed to run roughshod over these well-established protections for creatives to suit the interests of Big Tech.

Europe’s GDPR makes clear that personal data cannot be harvested or processed without informed consent. Our voices, our faces, our biometric information – all of this falls under GDPR protections. Yet tech firms are often scraping and training their AI models on this data without clear disclosure or permission.

When AI is used to recreate a voice, synthesise a performance, or replicate a style, that work still relies on the skills, choices, and identity of a real performer. And if that contribution is profitable, it should be compensated.

We’ve already seen the dangers of “buyouts” – contracts that limit artists’ royalties and residuals – and “special stips” added by bosses which seek to undermine our collective agreements.

Now, we’re facing a future where studios offer a one-time fee to scan our members’ faces or record their voices, then use them forever. That’s not a contract – that’s an act of dispossession.

The solution is clear: strong, enforceable union agreements that protect workers from AI exploitation. Through Equity’s current negotiations with the producers and employer’s associations whose agreements govern 95 per cent of recorded media production for film and TV in the UK, we are seeking groundbreaking and industry-leading AI conditions.

While we secure improvements and protections in our industrial negotiations, this could be undermined by the government. That’s why Equity’s motion to Congress calls for political and campaign work to strengthen workers’ rights in the face of AI.

The government’s intended introduction of a “text and data mining exemption” to copyright protection received a huge backlash earlier this year, causing them to respond that they did not in fact have a preferred option for that carve-out so craved by Big Tech.

The fight for fair AI isn’t just about actors, performers and singers, or choreographers, designers, backstage and technical workers. It’s much wider. It’s about stopping a new wave of digital exploitation before it becomes the norm. It’s about saying: our work is not free. Our bodies, voices, and identities are not for sale.

So we seek solidarity from our fellow trades unionists to stand together against this most 21st-century exploitation of workers and use our collective voice. As our motto goes: “To all artists: good work; to all workers; good art; to all people: Equity.”

Paul W Fleming is general secretary of Equity.