Dear Prime Minister, Premier, Ministers, and Members of Parliament:
I am writing to ask what is being done to protects the arts, creators and creative business owners as AI technologies (specifically Generative AI) continue to develop?
Visual art, music, dance and other forms of performing arts is a high expression of what it means to be human and is worthy of protections. During the current and upcoming difficult times, it is human made art with the unique light that comes with human consciousness that gives hope. As an example of its healing power, doctors have started prescribing art to assist with stress reduction: https://www.gallery.ca/magazine/in-the-spotlight/art-for-wellness-what-the-doctor-ordered
As you may know, this past month Meta announced upcoming changes to their terms and conditions that has a large collective of creators considering leaving facebook and instagram platforms despite it being a major source of business networking and financial income. Please see Chris Morris’ testimonial: https://www.facebook.com/reel/1436812191985064
As Morris expresses, these terms include legalese “word salad” that through its vagueness implies that by being on Meta with a business page that anything posted or links (including artists and gallery websites) has been consented to be scraped to train their Generative AI systems. This puts artists, gallerists and other creators in a terrible position to choose between protecting their art and leaving social media that is quintessential to networking. These changes are scheduled to take place in late November: https://www.niemanlab.org/2026/10/metas-new-commercial-terms-will-allow-the-scraping-of-news-sites-legal-experts-say/
Even before this recent development things have been getting out of hand causing me to become concerned for the future of the arts. Prior to AI development, intellectual theft, copyright and plagiarism was an understood wrong. In the past few months, I have witnessed countless creators posting about their performances being digitally cloned and stolen: https://tinyurl.com/4bcpncw9
I took the time to watch how the unique sewing pattern created by a small business owner was quickly copied and mimicked by Generative AI and sold on Etsy for a cheaper price: https://tinyurl.com/4k2x22rt
I have sat to witness the sadness of an artist whose unique crochet flowers book was stolen, copied and mimicked by Generative AI: https://tinyurl.com/ytb2afvh
I have seen examples of artists sharing their horror at the discovery that their artwork was directly copied by a Generative AI system and given to another to use for a poster: https://tinyurl.com/5v924wds
I have seen over 20 dancers reporting their unique routines completely digitally cloned: https://tinyurl.com/mrx4fz8k
Related to my concerns about art is also the growing concern that people’s likeness/voice/identity is being digitally cloned and repackaged to sell things the person would have no connection to: https://tinyurl.com/4k69nkym
I assume you are aware of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni seeking to trademark her face and voice in order to avoid deepfakes or that Denmark has proposed a copyright for citizen’s face/likeness/voice: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckly0g1ljq2yo
I sincerely hope I don’t have to convince you of the unethical nature of AI scraping creative works or a person’s identity without consent.
I sincerely believe that to move forward with technological developments in a healthful and peaceful way for humans that something needs to be done quickly to protect human creativity, artworks, music, dance and other performing arts. If this is allowed to continue, creative businesses will continue to be harmed.
There needs to be national and global laws that address protecting creative works and personal identity/likeliness/voice from Generative AI, LLMs and other new technological developments. It needs to be national and global law that AI works, video and images must be clearly labeled. The current Generative AI systems could also be reset and trained through ethical means from scratch.
If AI technologies are indeed as powerful as they are being marketed, then systems to protect original creations should be easily obtainable.
What will you be offering the artists, musicians, dancers, performers and creative business owners of now and the future to ensure this precious piece of humanity is protected?
Sincerely (with hope for humanity),
Deanna Musgrave
Sent to:
Mark Carney (Prime Minister) - mark.carney@parl.gc.ca
Melonie Joly (Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry) -melanie.joly@parl.gc.ca
Susan Holt (Premier of New Brunswick) premier@gnb.ca - Susan.Holt@gnb.ca
Hon. Isabelle Thériault (Minister of Tourism Heritage and Culture) - Isabelle.Theriault@gnb.ca
My Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) <- you will need to search which one is yours
My local Member of Parliament (MP) <- you will need to search which one is yours
The Advisory Council on AI and Culture:
Evan Solomon (Minister of Artificial Intelligence) evan.solomon@parl.gc.ca
Marc Miller (Minister of Culture) Marc.Miller@parl.gc.ca, hon.marc.miller@pch.gc.ca