Copyright and Artificial Intelligence

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[edit] Introduction

On 18 March 2026 the government Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and Department for Culture, Media and Sport published its Report on Copyright and Artificial Intelligence, alongside a Copyright and AI Impact Assessment.

These reports are largely the result of a its proposals to give creative industries and AI developers clarity over copyright laws, which included what it called an opt-out model in terms of copyright law when concerning AI training. The original proposals formed a consultation published 17 December, 2026, which caused significant outcry from the creative industries opposed to opting out for AIs. These new reports have been received as general confirmation that the government is backtracking from its previous stance of allowing AIs to opt-out of copyright law for training purposes. However whilst the change in stance, which no longer sees the government preferring an opt out option for AIs as previously, has been welcomed, what the alternative will be remains unclear.

[edit] Background

At the time of its original consultation in December 2024 the government described its proposals as a balanced package of proposals aimed "to give creators greater control over how their material is used by AI developers, and enhance their ability to be paid for its use" seeking "greater transparency from AI firms over the data used to train AI models alongside how AI-generated content is labelled, but crucially that "AI developers would have wide access to material to train world-leading models in the UK, and legal certainty would boost AI adoption across the economy"

The proposals, in particular the last statement were seen as the government pushing a preference for an opt-out model. The model would see AI companies effectively allowed to use copyrighted works to train models with or without consent and although it mentioned investigations of how remuneration issues might work, they would be largely unremunerated because of the opt-out mechanism. The consultation ran until February 2025 and received a large number of responses, with the large majority opposing the opt-out model, with 88% wanting to see copyright licenses being required for all cases when it came to training AI models on existing works.

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• The influence of digital technologies on conservation
• Architectural Technology and AI
• AI and the challenges to intellectual property
• Shortage of high-quality data and other fundamental issues threatening the AI boom
• AI is killing the goose that laid the golden egg
• UK consults on proposals to give creative industries and AI developers clarity over copyright laws