A global coalition of screenwriters’ organizations and unions, including the Writers Guild of America East and West, has collectively resolved to push for “robust licensing mechanisms” that require clear consent if scribes’ material is used to train AI tools.
The Federation of Screenwriters in Europe and International Affiliation of Writers Guilds is set to announce Thursday that they had passed a joint resolution on ethical use of AI. That resolution calls, in part, for member groups to pursue a goal in 2024 of ensuring “only intellectual property that has been licensed for such use be included in the datasets of commercialized LLMs, or any other present or future forms of AI.”
The resolution also calls for the groups to work towards preventing any forms of AI from replacing writers, to push for transparency measures that inform writers if AI is used for any writing services like polishes or re-writes, to advocate for authorship rights to only be given to humans and to promote “fair remuneration for the use of writers’ intellectual property in LLMs or any other present or future forms of AI.”
Collectively, the groups represent about 67,000 professional writers globally. The Federation of Screenwriters in Europe is comprised of 26 organizations devoted to screenwriters, including unions, guilds and associations, from 21 European countries. The International Affiliation of Writers Guilds counts 14 international writers’ guilds as members, including the WGA East and West, the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain, the Writers Guild of Canada, the Screenwriters Guild of South Korea and Société des auteurs de radio, télévision et cinéma.
The resolution calls for these organizations to pursue their AI goals through collective bargaining, lobbying and “mandatory clauses in standard contracts.”
According to IAWG chair and Irish screenwriter Jennifer Davidson (Fair City), the AI protections secured by the WGA East and West during the 2023 writers’ strike are serving as a starting point for the groups. “The members of the IAWG seek to build on the hard-won protections our sister Guilds in America, the WGAE and the WGAW, were able to achieve during their strike: namely that it should be a tool to enhance our writing process, not diminish the value of our work or replace us,” she said in a statement.
Meanwhile, FSE president and German screenwriter Carolin Otto (Lena Lorenz) noted that the European Union’s AI Act, which is set to become law later this year, contained “unresolved issues with respect to the unauthorized use of our intellectual property for training large language models, and uncertainty regarding authorship and copyright of machine-generated script material.” She added, “We intend to voice our concerns in both national and global policy arenas, as well as develop standard language film and television writers can demand in their contracts.”
Following a punishing round of negotiations with Hollywood’s top studios and streamers and a 148-day strike, in 2023 the WGA East and West won credit, transparency and flexibility protections when it comes to AI. The contract didn’t bar the use of AI — writers can still use it as a tool if their employer okays the use, and studios can ask, but not require, writers to work with AI — but it does require both parties to disclose any use of the technology. Moreover, the unions secured affirmations that AI is not a writer and cannot pen “literary material,” and any use of AI will not change writers’ credit or compensation.