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On Wednesday, Liz Kendall (the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology) published a written statement, together with a Report and Impact Assessment, on the Government’s ‘progress’ towards…
United Kingdom
Intellectual Property
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On Wednesday, Liz Kendall (the Secretary of State for Science,
Innovation and Technology) published a written statement, together with a Report and Impact Assessment, on the
Government’s ‘progress’ towards addressing the
application of UK copyright law to the training of AI
models.Â
Since the end of 2024, the Government has “engaged
extensively with creatives, AI firms, industry bodies, unions,
academics and AI adopters, and that engagement has shaped our
approach”, has made a strong commitment to “do what is
right for the whole British economy” and is “determined
to make progress on these issues”.Â
After all that engagement, what is the Government’s
long-anticipated approach to resolving the tension between AI
developers and copyright owners? Following an extensive
consultation process with over 11,500 responses, the establishment
of four technical working groups with stakeholders, and a
protracted period of lengthy consideration and debate – the
Government now “no longer has a preferred option” for
legislative reform on AI training. The anticlimactic conclusion:
more consultation, for an indefinite period.
Background
The report and impact assessment follow the Copyright and AI consultation, which was
launched by the Government in December 2024. The consultation’s
aim was to resolve the ongoing tension between copyright law and
artificial intelligence, and to consider how UK law should balance
the interests of copyright owners against the interests of AI
developers. In its initial consultation document, the government
set out a preferred option: a new text-and-data mining (TDM)
exception to copyright that would allow AI companies to use
copyright-protected works for AI training purposes, provided the
rightsholder had not “reserved their rights” (or
“opted out”).
The 2024 consultation’s preferred option of a broad TDM
copyright exception subject to opt-out was intended to bring UK
copyright law broadly in line with the EU approach, but was
strongly opposed by the UK’s creative industries. Particular
concerns were raised about the lack of technical standards for
expressing rightsholder opt-out preferences. Opposition boiled over
during the passage of the Data (Use and Access)
Bill in mid-2025, where the House of Lords sought to
insert provisions on transparency for copyright owners regarding
the use of copyrighted works for AI training. Those transparency
proposals were rejected, but as a concession to enable the Data Bill
to pass, the government committed to publish a report and impact
assessment within 9 months of the Data (Use and Access) Act
(“DUAA”).Â
What does the government update address?
The topics required to be covered in the report and impact
assessment were outlined in sections 135-136 of the DUAA. This included an
obligation to consider and make proposals in relation to:
addressing the copyright and AI policy options discussed in the
2024 Copyright and AI consultation document;
technical measures and standards to control the use of
copyright works to develop AI systems;
the effect of copyright on the access to data by developers of
AI system;
the disclosure of information by developers of AI systems about
their use of copyright works in the development process; and
the licensing of copyright works to AI developers for training
and enforcement.Â
The DUAA required the government to “make proposals”
about a range of topics. A cynic might suggest that the government
has instead only proposed to continue to monitor and consult. For
example, on the issue of technical standards that enable
rightsholders to express how their work can be accessed and used,
the government concludes that:
“We propose to keep the need for regulation of
technical tools and standards under review, and to continue to
monitor international developments. We propose to work with experts
and industry to support best practice and adoption of market-led
tools and standards.”
In addition to the topics mandated by the DUAA, the report also
addressed section 9(3) of the Copyright Designs and Patents
Act, which provides protection for literary, dramatic, musical
or artistic works which are computer-generated; and the extent to
which existing law adequately addresses deepfakes or digital
replicas – the use of AI to replicate or mimic the appearance or
voice of individuals. Again, the report does not reach a concluded
policy provision on either of these issues. On section 9(3) the
government intends to continue to monitor the use and impact of the
provision, but indicates that it may repeal it. On digital
replicas, the government identifies support for enhanced
protections for a person’s image and voice, but that there is
no single view on what form that protection should take, and
commits to launching a consultation on the issue of digital
replicas in summer.
What next?
The issue of the relationship between copyright and AI is
complex, but the UK creative industry will be disappointed that,
despite considering the issue for over a year, the Government has
been unable to meaningfully set out firm legislative reform
proposals to address the pressing issues identified in the
DUAA.Â
The creative sector will welcome the conclusion reached by the
Government in the Report that various stages of the development and
deployment of AI models are likely to infringe copyright law if
carried out in the UK without permission of copyright
owners.Â
While the Impact Assessment notes that “[s]ome aspects of
UK copyright law and its application to AI training are
disputed”, the main source of uncertainty over the past year
can arguably be traced back to the Government itself -
specifically, its past approach of setting out a ‘preferred
option’ reform proposal that would have weakened UK copyright
law. The Report acknowledges that the legal position in the UK in
relation to copyright and AI is one of several “uncertain
factors” which has affected the extent to which the licensing
market has developed; and consultation respondents highlighted that
uncertainty created by the Government proposals for change
“has a direct adverse impact on the current market for
rightsholders”.Â
Despite this, the Government has not definitively ruled out the
introduction of a new TDM exception with an opt-out reservation of
rights mechanism, as the House of Lords Communications and Digital Select
Committee urged it to do last week. Ruling out such a TDM
exception would place UK copyright owners in a stronger position
when negotiating licensing deals with AI developers, but for now
rightsholders have been left to fend for themselves under existing
principles of UK IP law – with government indecision looming
large in the background.Â
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