The government has been warned at Westminster that artificial intelligence poses an "existential threat" to free press by stealing content, thus endangering quality news and thousands of reporter jobs.
Urgent reform was demanded in Parliament, as ministers were also questioned over Whitehall reaching an agreement with a Canadian tech giant that faces legal action by media companies over allegations of large-scale copyright infringement.
The call for swift action follows a bitter stand-off in the House of Lords over attempts to prevent the creative industries, including news outlets, from being exploited by machine-learning developers.
The controversy centered on fears of AI companies using copyrighted work without permission, with the government accused of "supporting thieves".
Responding to a question on the issue in the upper chamber, media minister Baroness Twycross said: "Trustworthy journalism plays a vital role in our democracy."
Rapid recent developments in generative AI pose both significant risks and opportunities for news media.
We are engaging with press stakeholders on this.
She added: "The Government will support our news media to capitalize on the huge potential benefits of the technology while mitigating its risk."
But deputy chairman of the Telegraph Group, and Conservative peer, Lord Black of Brentwood said: "AI poses an existential threat to independent media because of the way it scrapes their high quality content without either attribution or payment to those who create it, which is an act of theft, directly threatening the provision of quality news and the jobs of thousands of reporters."
Is the minister aware that research by market leader Cloudflare shows that, for example, for every 73,000 pages of content scraped by Anthropic's AI crawlers from news providers, there is just one single referral back to publishers' websites?
Does she realize that without this vital traffic, publishers can't sell advertising or subscriptions, and their businesses become unsustainable?
The free press can't wait years for copyright reform... we were promised immediate action on this issue when the Data Act was passed. When will we get some of it?
Responding, Lady Twycross said: "We want to get this right and for AI to work for everyone."
All of our work is around protecting rights that already exist for creatives and press and ensuring AI creates new revenue streams for them.
We are carefully reviewing all the responses to our consultation to ensure any proposals taken forward properly support both AI and creative sectors, including the media.
Filmmaker Baroness Kidron, who has been a leading critic of the Labour administration on this issue, said: "During the passage of the Data (Use and Access) Bill, the Government repeatedly asked Parliament to trust that they had the interests of UK copyright holders at the forefront."
So can the minister explain why the UK government has now signed a memorandum of understanding with the Canadian AI company Cohere, when Cohere is facing legal action from 13 news media copyright holders, including The Guardian, Forbes and The Atlantic?
Does she not agree with me that the Government might better earn Parliament's trust if, instead of rewarding AI companies which infringe copyright with opportunities, it limited those opportunities and indeed future Government contracts to companies that lawfully license inputs?
Lady Twycross said: "As I said, we do want to and need to make sure we get this right for everyone. I'm happy to have a conversation with her about the issue she raises."
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