Ministers block Lords bid to make AI firms declare use of copyrighted content

Beeban Kidron said people in the creative industries were ‘gobsmacked that the government is playing parliamentary chess with their livelihoods’. Photograph: Antonio Olmos/The Observer

Ministers have used an arcane parliamentary procedure to block an amendment to the data bill that would require artificial intelligence companies to disclose their use of copyright-protected content.

The government stripped the transparency amendment, which was backed by peers in the bill’s reading in the House of Lords last week, out of the draft text by invoking financial privilege, meaning there is no budget available for new regulations, during a Commons debate on Wednesday afternoon.