As a result of the company’s view that it is acceptable to use copyrighted work without permission to train its products, a senior executive has resigned.

In the UK and US, Ed Newton-Rex was head of audio at the firm.

According to him, using creative work without consent was “exploitative” for AI developers.

However, many large AI firms, including Stability AI, argue that taking copyrighted content is “fair use”.

It is not necessary to obtain permission from the original content owner for “fair use” exemptions to copyright rules.

There is currently a study being conducted by the US copyright office about generative AI and policy issues.

The majority of AI firms share this view, according to Mr Newton-Rex.

Emad Mostaque, founder of Stability AI, responded to his former staff member on X (Twitter) by saying fair use encourages creative development.

It is common for AI tools to be trained using large amounts of data, much of which has been scraped from the internet without consent.

Generative AI products – which create images, audio, video, and music – are then able to replicate the style of an individual artist if requested.

Newton-Rex, who is also a choral composer, said he “wouldn’t jump” at the chance to make his music free for AI developers.

I don’t think I would agree to give my compositions to a system like this,” he said.

Many people create content “for literally no money, hoping that one day the copyright will be worth something”.