European lawmakers on the European Parliament’s legal affairs committee have urged that providers of generative artificial intelligence compensate creators when their copyrighted European works are used to train models, and demanded clear disclosure of which materials are ingested. According to the committee’s report, members want the news industry to be able to decide whether its content is used for training, including an explicit right to refuse, and they seek rules that cover all generative AI systems offered on the EU market regardless of where training occurs.

The committee adopted its position by a large majority and will present the measure to the full Parliament for a plenary vote in March. Industry observers and MEPs say the move aims to remove legal uncertainty created by existing text-and-data-mining exceptions and to secure fair remuneration and legal clarity for authors and other rightsholders.

The draft report, titled "Copyright and Generative Artificial Intelligence – Opportunities and Challenges", follows an exploratory workshop held by the committee in June 2025 that brought together legal experts, technologists and representatives of creators to probe how foundation models interact with current copyright frameworks and where gaps persist. According to the document, the committee seeks binding transparency obligations for model builders and clearer consent mechanisms so that creators can understand and challenge how their work is reused.

The push in Brussels comes amid high‑profile litigation abroad that underscores the stakes for authors. A US federal judge recently approved a $1.5 billion settlement in a suit against Anthropic alleging unauthorised scraping of nearly 465,000 books to train its chatbot, a case that illustrates the financial and reputational risks companies face when training on copyrighted material without agreement from rightsholders.

Supporters of stronger safeguards say the measures are intended to balance technological progress with creators’ rights. "Generative AI must not operate outside the rule of law. If copyrighted works are used to train AI systems, creators are entitled to transparency, legal certainty, and fair compensation," said German MEP Axel Voss while advancing the committee position, adding: "Innovation cannot come at the expense of copyright, both can and must coexist." The committee’s report, and the views expressed at the June workshop, are likely to frame negotiations ahead of the broader review of EU copyright rules scheduled later this year.

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Source: Noah Wire Services