The House of Lords Communications and Digital Select Committee has published the UK government’s response to its ‘AI, copyright and the creative industries’ report.
In late 2024, the UK government consulted on copyright and AI. At that stage, the government’s preferred way forward was to enable AI developers to train on copyright works, but to give rightsholders the ability to opt out of this regime. This was overwhelmingly rejected by the vast majority of the creative industries and led to a requirement being included in the Data Use and Access Act 2025 for the government to report on its progress towards resolving the issue.
On 18 March, the government duly laid in Parliament a report and impact assessment on AI and copyright and set out four areas of focus. This included launching a consultation on digital replicas in the summer, establishing a taskforce on AI labelling, publishing a review of mechanisms available for creators to control their works online, and launching a working group on independent and smaller creative organisations. The Government is also establishing the Creative Content Exchange (CCE), designed to be a secure online marketplace for licensing and enabling permitted access to digitised cultural and creative assets.
The Committee has now published the government response to their recommendations regarding copyright and AI training, licensing, digital replicas, transparency, and technical tools and standards. The Government response indicates agreement with many concerns but it is taking a slower, more methodical approach before legislating on these issues.
The Committee recommended that commercial AI developers must obtain licences for copyrighted material used in model training and that the government rules out a text-and-data mining exception for commercial AI. The Committee also called for a clear, evidence-based policy decision regarding AI and copyright within the next 12 months, arguing that UK policy should prioritise smaller creators and AI companies over large multinational platforms. The Government has responded by confirming that licensing is already a requirement under current law but has not committed to introducing new statutory measures. The Government has further responded by stating that there is no current preferred reform option and that it will monitor international developments in this area including transparency rules in the EU.
The Committee had advocated for what it terms a “licensing-first” system, aiming to avoid a single government-controlled market and instead focusing on creating an environment which is competitive and allows for creators to negotiate with developers. Recommendations also included mechanisms for creators to track use of their work, though collective management and/or new rights which guarantee payment. The Committee also emphasised the need for smaller organisations to be supported when dealing with large AI companies. The Government responded by stating that it supports a market-based approach and is developing the CCE as a pilot to help creators license their work. The Government is also setting up a working group to support smaller organisations but will not intervene directly in the licensing markets.
The report highlighted the growing problem of AI systems generating convincing imitations of a person’s face, voice or creative style without permission. The Committee emphasised that UK law does not give people clear rights to prevent this from happening or have control over how their identity is used. The Government responded by stating it agrees with the Committee that the law is outdated and it plans to issue a consultation on digital replicas. It also plans to look at how other countries are creating specific rights to protect individuals from unauthorised AI-generated likenesses.
The Committee also recommended that large AI developers be required to explain to regulators what data they have acquired and how they have used it to train their models. Without this information, the Committee argued, creators are unable to enforce their rights and regulators cannot assess the risks. The government agrees with the Committee’s sentiments on transparency and will publish a review of possible transparency mechanisms but notes that industry views differ and it could be costly for smaller companies or push AI training overseas.
The Government also supported the development of technical tools, such as watermarking and other systems which help creators declare they don’t want their content used for training and that help users identify when content has been AI-generated. The government has also set up an AI labelling taskforce to explore options and has pointed to the Online Safety Act as encompassing deepfakes and is working with Ofcom to improve understanding of AI-generated content. Ofcom is also investigating the implications
of AI for media literacy and what new knowledge and skills might be needed.
