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AI should not be built on theft – Abba songwriter

Songwriter Björn Ulvaeus of Abba has said that he is concerned about weakened rights for creators under the EU’s AI Act. 

Ulvaeus told MEPs in Brussels (20 May) that “proposals driven by Big Tech” ignored transparency calls by the creative sector. 

“The argument that AI can only be achieved if copyright is weakened is false and dangerous. AI should not be built on theft; it would be an historic abandonment of principles,” Ulvaeus said. 

Pro tech

“I am pro-tech, but I am concerned about current proposals that are being driven by the tech sector to weaken creative rights,” Ulvaeus told MEPs at a hearing of the European Parliament’s Committee on Culture and Education. 

Ulvaeus is president of the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC). 

He added his voice to concerns recently expressed by the creative industry, including publishers and rightsholders, on the drafting process of a voluntary Code of Practice on General Purpose AI (GPAI) for large language models such as ChatGPT under the AI Act.  

In September, the European Commission appointed 13 experts to examine the question through plenary sessions.