UK kicks off review into training AI models on copyrighted content

Published

8 months ago

December 17, 2024

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On Dec. 9, OpenAI made its artificial intelligence video generation model Sora publicly available in the U.S. and other countries.

Cfoto | Future Publishing | Getty Images

The U.K. is drawing up measures to regulate the use of copyrighted content by tech companies to train their artificial intelligence models.

The British government on Tuesday kicked off a consultation which aims to increase clarity for both the creative industries and AI developers when it comes to both how intellectual property is obtained and then used by AI firms for training purposes.

Some artists and publishers are unhappy with the way their content is being scraped freely by companies like OpenAI and Google to train their large language models — AI models trained on huge quantities of data to generate humanlike responses.

Large language models are the foundational technology behind today’s generative AI systems, including the likes of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini and Anthropic’s Claude.

Last year, The New York Times brought a lawsuit against Microsoft and OpenAI accusing the companies of infringing its copyright and abusing intellectual property to train large language models.

In response, OpenAI disputed the NYT’s allegations, stating that the use of open web data for training AI models should be considered “fair use” and that it provides an “opt-out” for rights holders “because it’s the right thing to do.”

Separately, image distribution platform Getty Images sued another generative AI firm, Stability AI, in the U.K., accusing it of scraping millions of images from its websites without consent to train its Stable Diffusion AI model. Stability AI has disputed the suit, noting that the training and development of its model took place outside the U.K.

Proposals to be considered

First, the consultation will consider making an exception to copyright law for AI training when used in the context of commercial purposes but while still allowing rights holders to reserve their rights so they can control the use of their content.

Second, the consultation will put forward proposed measures to help creators license and be remunerated for the use of their content by AI model makers, as well as give AI developers clarity over what material can be used for training their models.

The government said more work needs to be done by both the creative industries and technology firms to ensure any standards and requirements for rights reservation and transparency are effective, accessible and widely adopted.

The government is also considering proposals that would require AI model makers to be more transparent about their model training datasets and how they’re obtained so that rights holders can understand when and how their content has been used to train AI.

That could prove controversial — technology firms aren’t especially forthcoming when it comes to the data that fuels their coveted algorithms or how they train them up, given the commercial sensitivities involved in revealing those secrets to potential competitors.

Previously, under former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, the government attempted to agree a voluntary AI copyright code of practice.

AI copyright rules: U.K. versus U.S.

In a recent interview with CNBC, the boss of app development software firm Appian said he thinks the U.K. is well placed to be the “global leader on this issue.”

“The U.K. has put a stake in the ground declaring its prioritization of personal intellectual property rights,” Matt Calkins, Appian’s CEO, told CNBC. He cited 2018’s Data Protection Act as an example of how the U.K. is “closely associated with intellectual property rights.”

The U.K. is also not “subject to the same overwhelming lobbying blitz from domestic AI leaders that the U.S. is,” Calkins added — meaning it might not be as prone to bowing down to pressure from tech giants as politicians stateside.

“In the U.S., anybody who writes a law about AI is going to hear from Amazon, Oracle, Microsoft or Google before that bill even reaches the floor,” Calkins said.

“That’s a powerful force stopping anyone from writing sensible legislation or protecting the rights of individuals whose intellectual property is being taken wholesale by these major AI players.”

The issue of potential copyright infringement by AI firms is becoming more notable as tech firms are moving toward a more “multimodal” form of AI — that is, AI systems that can understand and generate content in the form of images and video as well as text.

Last week, OpenAI made its AI video generation model Sora publicly available in the U.S. and “most countries internationally.” The tool allows a user to type out a desired scene and produce a high-definition video clip.

Technology

Ether rises to a fresh record, bitcoin erases gains from Jackson Hole rally

Published

16 hours ago

August 24, 2025

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Ether rises to a fresh record, bitcoin erases gains from Jackson Hole rally

Jakub Porzycki | NurPhoto | Getty Images

Ether rose to a new record over the weekend, after hitting an all-time high Friday for the first time since 2021.

The price of the second largest cryptocurrency rose as high as $4,954.81 on Sunday afternoon. It was last higher by less than 1% at $4,776.46.

Meanwhile, bitcoin at one point erased all the gains from its Friday rally, falling as low as $110,779.01, its lowest level since July 10. It was last trading lower by nearly 2% at about $112,000. The flagship cryptocurrency hit its most recent record of $124,496 on Aug. 13.

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Ether (ETH) and bitcoin (BTC)

On Friday, crypto rocketed with the broader market after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell hinted at upcoming rate cuts and investors returned to risk-on mode. Ether surged 15% and bitcoin gained 4%.

Ether, rather than bitcoin, has been leading the crypto marker for several weeks thanks to regulatory tailwinds, a boom in interest in stablecoins and buying en masse by a new cohort of corporate ether accumulators. On Saturday, Bitmine Immersion Technologies, the ether treasury company chaired by Wall Street bull Tom Lee, bought $45 million of ether, according to crypto data provider Arkham.

That shift in leadership has helped sustain ETH, which has sustained the $4,000 level this month after unsuccessfully testing the resistance mark a handful of times since 2021.

“The buyers are finally bigger than the sellers,” said Ben Kurland, CEO at crypto research platform DYOR. “ETH ETFs are drawing steady inflows, and public companies are beginning to treat ETH as a treasury asset they can stake for yield — a stickier form of demand than retail speculation.”

“Additionally, nearly a third of supply is locked in staking, scaling solutions are mature and, with rate cuts back on the table, the cost of capital is falling,” he added. “Those forces turned $4,000 from a resistance level into a foundation for re-pricing ETH’s next chapter.”

Don’t miss these cryptocurrency insights from CNBC Pro:

Technology

How the U.S. space industry became dependent on SpaceX

Published

1 day ago

August 24, 2025

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How the U.S. space industry became dependent on SpaceX

SpaceX is valued at around $400 billion and is critical for U.S. space access, but it wasn’t always the powerhouse that it is today.

Elon Musk founded SpaceX in 2002. Using money that he made from the sale of PayPal, Musk and his new company developed their first rocket, the Falcon 1, to challenge existing launch providers.

“There were actually a lot of startup aerospace companies looking to take on this market. They recognized we had a monopoly provider called United Launch Alliance. They had merged the Boeing and Lockheed rocket launch capacity to one company, and they were charging the government hundreds of millions of dollars to launch satellites,” said Lori Garver, a former deputy administrator at NASA.

In 2003, Musk paraded Falcon 1 around the streets of Washington hoping to attract the attention of government agencies and the multi-million dollar contracts that they offered. It worked, and in 2004, SpaceX secured a few million dollars from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, and the U.S. Air Force to further develop its rockets.

Despite the government support, the company struggled. Its first three launches of the Falcon 1 failed to reach orbit.

“NASA, and specifically the the initial commercial cargo contract, is what saved the company when it was on the brink of bankruptcy,” said Chris Quilty, president and Co-CEO of Quilty Space, a space-focused research firm.

NASA awarded the $1.6 billion contract, known as Commercial Resupply Services to SpaceX in 2008, just months after the first successful flight of the Falcon 1. The contract called on SpaceX to use its new rocket, the Falcon 9, along with its Dragon capsule to ferry cargo and supplies to the International Space Station over the course of 12 missions. In 2014, SpaceX won another NASA contract worth $2.6 billion to develop and operate vehicles to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station.

Today, SpaceX dominates large parts of the space market from launch to satellites. In 2024, SpaceX conducted a record-breaking 134 orbital launches, more than double the amount of launches done by the next most prolific launch provider, the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, according to science and technology consulting firm BryceTech. These 134 launches accounted for 83% of all spacecraft launched last year. According to a July report by Bloomberg, SpaceX was valued at $400 billion.

SpaceX’s Dragon capsule and Falcon 9 rocket are the primary means by which NASA launches astronauts and supplies to the International Space Station. The company’s Starlink satellites have become indispensable for providing internet access to remote areas as well as to U.S. allies during wartime. The company’s Starship rocket, though still in testing, is also key to the U.S. plan to return to the moon. SpaceX is also building a network of spy satellites for the U.S. government called Starshield as part of a $1.8 billion contract. Even competitors including Amazon and OneWeb have launched their satellites on SpaceX rockets.

“The ecosystem of space is changed by, really it’s SpaceX,” Garver said. “The lower cost of access to space is doing what we had dreamed of. It is built up a whole community of companies around the world that now have access to space.”

Watch the video to find out more.

Technology

Cybersecurity firm Netskope files to go public on the Nasdaq

Published

3 days ago

August 22, 2025

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Cybersecurity firm Netskope files to go public on the Nasdaq

Sanjay Beri, chief executive officer and founder of Netskope Inc., listens during a Bloomberg West television interview in San Francisco, California.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Cloud security platform Netskope will go public on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “NTSK,” the company said in an initial public offering filing Friday.

The Santa Clara, California-based company said annual recurring revenue grew 33% to $707 million, while revenues jumped 31% to about $328 million in the first half of the year.

But Netskope isn’t profitable yet. The company recorded a $170 million net loss during the first half of the year. That narrowed from a $207 million loss a year ago.

Netskope joins an increasing number of technology companies adding momentum to the surge in IPO activity after high inflation and interest rates effectively killed the market.

So far this year, design software firm Figma more than tripled in its New York Stock Exchange debut, while crypto firm Circle soared 168% in its first trading day. CoreWeave has also popped since its IPO, while trading app eToro surged 29% in its May debut.