A petition against AI data scraping has drawn 11,500 signatories from across the creative world, including Kevin Bacon, Thom Yorke, Julianne Moore, Kazuo Ishiguro, Robert Smith, and Sidney Blumenthal.
The message is direct: creative workers are objecting to the unlicensed use of their work in generative AI training. The petition frames the issue not as a technical dispute, but as a threat to the people whose writing, music, art, journalism, performance, and other work may be used to build AI systems without permission.
A broad creative backlash
The petition brings together well-known names from several creative fields. Among the signatories named in the source are the actor Kevin Bacon, the novelist Kazuo Ishiguro, the musician Robert Smith, and the journalist and historian Sidney Blumenthal. Thom Yorke and Julianne Moore are also named among the creatives who signed.
That range matters because the complaint is not limited to one kind of creative work. Generative AI systems can be trained on many forms of content, and the concern expressed by the petition is that those works are being treated as raw material without a license from the people behind them.
The petition states:
“The unlicensed use of creative works for training generative AI is a major, unjust threat to the livelihoods of the people behind those works, and must not be permitted,”
That sentence captures the core argument. The signatories are not simply objecting to AI as a category. They are objecting to unlicensed use, and they are tying that practice to livelihoods.
Why AI training data is the flashpoint
The dispute centers on how generative AI systems are developed. The source describes the issue as data being scraped for generative AI development, with creative works used for training. For the signatories, the problem is that the works may be used without permission from the people who made them.
In plain language, the complaint is about control and compensation. If a creative work helps train a generative AI system, the petition argues that using that work without a license is not a neutral technical step. It affects the people whose creative output gives the system something to learn from.
This is why the language around AI training has become contentious. The source says British composer Ed Newton-Rex, a former exec at Stability AI, accused AI companies of "dehumanizing" people’s art and work by calling it "training data." His criticism points to a larger concern: once a novel, song, article, image, or performance is described mainly as data, the person behind it can become easier to ignore.
The petition’s position is therefore both practical and cultural. Practically, it raises the question of whether AI companies should be able to use creative works without a license. Culturally, it challenges the way the AI industry talks about those works when building generative AI products.
Lawmakers are weighing their response
The petition arrives while lawmakers are considering how to respond to data scraping for generative AI. That timing gives the campaign a policy edge: it is not just a public statement by famous creatives, but part of a wider debate over how rules should apply to AI development.
The source says the Financial Times reported that the U.K. government plans to consult on an "opt out" model for AI content scraping. Based on that description, the model would place the debate around whether creators must take action to prevent their work from being used, rather than AI companies needing permission first.
For creative workers, that distinction is important. The petition’s wording focuses on unlicensed use and says it "must not be permitted." An "opt out" approach, as described in the source, would be a different way of handling permission than a system built around prior licensing.
The source does not provide the details of the planned consultation, and the petition does not settle the legal question on its own. But it shows that many creatives want policymakers to treat AI content scraping as a serious economic and ethical issue, not simply as an unavoidable part of technology development.
Who organized the petition
According to The Guardian, the petition was organized by British composer Ed Newton-Rex, who previously worked as an executive at Stability AI. The source says Newton-Rex described creatives as exceptionally worried.
That worry is easy to understand from the petition’s own framing. If creative works can be used to train generative AI without a license, the people who created those works may see their labor absorbed into commercial AI systems without having agreed to that use.
The petition also reflects a broader attempt to define the terms of the conversation. AI companies may describe large collections of content as training data. The creatives behind the petition are insisting that those collections include human work, and that the status of that work should not disappear when it enters an AI pipeline.
What the petition changes
The petition does not, by itself, create a rule for AI companies. It does, however, make the opposition visible. With 11,500 signatories and recognizable names attached, it gives lawmakers, AI companies, and the public a clear signal that many creatives reject unlicensed training on their work.
The central issue is likely to remain the same: whether creative works can be scraped and used for generative AI training without permission, and what kind of system should govern that use. The petition’s answer is clear. It says unlicensed use is a threat to livelihoods and should not be allowed.
For the AI industry, the pressure is not only about regulation. It is also about trust. If artists, writers, musicians, actors, journalists, and other creative workers believe their work is being reduced to "training data" without consent, the conflict around generative AI will remain difficult to resolve.
For creatives, the petition is a public line in the sand. It argues that the future of AI should not be built by taking creative work first and asking questions later.