AI Act adopted by EU co-legislators
22 May 2024
The provisional agreement on the AI Act Regulation concluded in December 2023 was endorsed by the EU Parliament on 13 March with 523 votes in favour, 46 against and 49 abstentions, and Member States gave their final green light on 21 May.
Since it was proposed by the EU Commission in April 2021, the AI Act was hotly debated – with new urgency as AI models were rolled out and made available to the wider public over the last couple of years. Generative AI models rapidly became the focus of Cultural and Creative sectors representatives, and FERA, together with a cross sectoral coordination of authors and performers, took part in the debate as of early 2023.
The regulation will soon be signed, published in the EU’s Official Journal and enter into force 20 days later. The new regulation will apply two years after its entry into force, with some exceptions for specific provisions.
FERA welcomes this first legislative initiative aiming to regulate AI, and takes note of the Regulation approach to harmonise rules on artificial intelligence in order to promote the creation of reliable and safe AI systems, while ensuring that the fundamental rights of EU citizens are respected and investment and innovation in AI across Europe are boosted.
FERA thanks the EU Parliament for its pivotal role in introducing and improving key provisions on compliance with EU copyright law by general purpose AI providers, transparency of data used to train general purpose AI models, and labelling of AI generated or manipulated content.
FERA also recalls that recent deployment of AI models was made possible by copyrighted material and personal data that were used without authors, performers or users information, consent, credit or remuneration. A blatant new example of this was publicised only a couple of days ago in Variety.
To be sustainable, the uptake of AI technology in the cultural and creative sector requires a legal framework that ensures the enforcement of creators’ rights based on transparency, consent and remuneration (see 25 April Joint Statement).
To go further:
– The AI Act text
– 21 May Council of the EU Press Release
– 21 May EU Parliament Press Release