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The International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers (STM), alongside a global coalition of authors and rightsholders, has issued a joint statement expressing concern over the European Commission’s current approach to implementing the EU AI Act. The group points to a lack of ambition in the proposed implementation instruments—including the Code of Practice, the Guidelines, and the Transparency Template—and warns that these measures risk undermining the intended impact of the legislation.

A coalition of rightsholders representing authors, performers, publishers, producers, and related organizations across the European Union and beyond has issued the joint statement expressing formal dissatisfaction with the European Commission’s recently published implementation measures for the EU AI Act. These include the General Purpose AI (GPAI) Code of Practice, accompanying Guidelines, and the Template for disclosing training data summaries under Article 53.

The coalition states that, despite extensive and detailed engagement from rightsholder communities throughout the drafting process, the final implementation instruments fail to address long-standing concerns raised on behalf of creators and companies in Europe’s cultural and creative sectors. According to the statement, the resulting measures fall short of a balanced solution and do not provide adequate protection of intellectual property rights in the context of generative AI (GenAI).

The group recalls that Article 53(1)(c) and (d) of the EU AI Act was specifically intended to facilitate the exercise and enforcement of copyright and related rights under EU law in response to widespread unlicensed use of protected content by GenAI developers. The coalition contends that the views of those the provisions were designed to protect have been largely disregarded, while the interests of GenAI developers—who, they argue, continue to use copyrighted content without authorization—have been prioritized.

The statement further warns that the current measures undermine the objectives of the EU AI Act, which had been welcomed by the cultural and creative sectors for promoting principles of responsible and trustworthy AI. The coalition emphasizes that these sectors, which collectively contribute nearly 7% of EU GDP and employ approximately 17 million professionals, now face increasing risks from unregulated GenAI deployments and content scraping practices.

Describing the adopted measures as ineffective in delivering transparency or accountability, the group asserts that the Code of Practice does not represent a fair or functional balance, and the training data Template fails to provide sufficient disclosure of copyright-protected materials used in GenAI training.

The coalition urges the European Commission to revise the implementation package and enforce Article 53 more robustly. It also calls on the European Parliament and Member States to scrutinize the process and outcomes to ensure that the EU AI Act fulfills its mandate to protect intellectual property rights in the evolving landscape of artificial intelligence. According to the statement, effective implementation is essential for safeguarding the interests of the scientific, cultural, and innovation sectors across the European Union.