Urtasun urges the European Commission to revise the Artificial Intelligence Code of Practice to protect creators

The Minister for Culture, Ernest Urtasun, has asked the European Commission to review the draft Code of Best Practices for General Purpose AI to protect the copyright of creators, which the Commission has been working on in recent months. He did so in a letter sent to the Executive Vice-President of the Commission for Technological Sovereignty, Security and Democracy, Henna Virkkunen, and to the Commissioner for Intergenerational Equity, Youth, Culture and Sport, Glenn Micallef. In it, Urtasun argues that the document does not align with European intellectual property law or with the principles of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union itself, which includes the right to intellectual property in Article 17.

Consequently, the Minister for Culture calls for a revision of the draft Code, given that "on the basis of this third draft, the obligations of AI system providers are reduced to mere 'reasonable efforts'. In this sense, complying with the requirements would become voluntary, undermining respect for intellectual property law."

The European Union passed a ground-breaking international law on Artificial Intelligence on 1 August. This Code of Best Practices for General Purpose AI is currently being developed. This is the third draft to be presented and has generated widespread rejection in the cultural sector, especially because of the weak guarantee in requiring transparency from AI providers regarding the sources of training and development of AI systems.

A coalition of artists, authors and rights holders in the cultural sector from across the European Union issued a joint statement in March expressing concern that the code undermines the aims of the Artificial Intelligence Act, creates legal uncertainty and dilutes the obligations of AI providers to comply with EU law.

The Minister for Culture shares the same concerns as the sector, as stated in his letter to the Commission: "We can only join the many voices from the economic, cultural and creative sectors who are calling for an urgent revision of the Code."

The Minister for Culture has been meeting in recent weeks with representatives of the Spanish cultural sector to address the challenges posed by Generative AI and to jointly assess possible measures to protect creators. Artificial Intelligence will also be one of the central themes at Mondiacult 2025, the UNESCO World Conference on Cultural Policies and Sustainable Development, and is already being addressed in the work leading up to the conference, which will be held in Barcelona in September.

Non official translation