Is it just me, or have there been more “words of the year” than usual this year? Maybe I’ve just noticed them more. If so, that could be a result of “brain rot,” which is the word of the year for the Oxford English Dictionary. It refers to the gradual degeneration of cognitive powers in the face of social media pablum—which, of course, you will never find here! I was absolutely delighted to see that the shortlist contained one of the words I’ve used most this year: “Romantasy,” whose popularity the OED specifically attributed to the BookTok community.
ALLi News Editor, Dan Holloway
Having denied that I am a source of brain rot, I am brought back to the subject of AI—but this time with an invitation to ALLi members and other writers based in the UK. The UK government has launched a public consultation on AI and copyright. Full details are available here.
The UK Government’s Consultation
The consultation begins:
“Two major strengths of the UK economy are its creative industries and AI sector. Both are essential to drive economic growth and deliver the government’s Plan for Change.”
It outlines its aims as follows:
- Boosting trust and transparency between sectors by ensuring AI developers provide rights holders with greater clarity about how they use their material.
- Enhancing rights holders’ control over whether or not their works are used to train AI models and their ability to be paid for its use if they so wish.
- Ensuring AI developers have access to high-quality material to train leading AI models in the UK and support innovation across the UK AI sector.
Four Options for Copyright and Licensing
I particularly recommend that people read the Summary Assessment of Options, a Word document annexed to the consultation page. It outlines four options for copyright and licensing that the government is considering:
- Doing nothing and leaving things as they are.
- Requiring a license for every use of material.
- Allowing an all-encompassing text and data mining exception, meaning no licenses would be needed.
- A data mining exception with a rights reservation option.
Reading the assessment of these options, it seems that the last of these is where current thinking is heading. Whether you think that’s a good idea or a bad one, it would be worth having your say.
Thoughts or further questions on this post or any self-publishing issue?
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