The proposal, made in December 2024, to override the rights of all artists, writers, musicians and other creators for the sake of training AI machines provoked widespread outrage with high-profile opponents including Elton John, Rowan Atkinson and Dua Lipa. The government’s consultation received more than 11,500 responses, overwhelmingly rejecting the government’s preferred option of giving AI developers a ‘data mining exception with opt-out and transparency measures’.
In a 125-page Report on copyright and artificial intelligence, presented to Parliament last week, however, the government said it wanted to ‘take the time needed to get this right’.
Joel Smith, partner at Simmons & Simmons, said: ‘The rumble of a can being kicked down the road is only evident to hear.
‘Rights’ holders will welcome that existing copyright law stands, left to the courts to apply existing principles. AI developers will be relieved to find no new statutory imposition of rules on transparency or labelling for now, nor any statutory imposed scheme for licensing content.
‘Instead, industry is left to negotiating licences under market-driven forces. Many will wonder whether the last two years were a strange dream, only to awake to the status quo of “business as usual”.’
Law Society chief executive Ian Jeffery welcomed the ‘intention to protect creators and explore alternatives to forcing everyone to instruct AI companies not to use their content (opt out)’.
He urged the government to ‘prioritise transparency in how AI developers use copyrighted material safeguarding the rights of creators regardless of the mechanism used (opt in or out). There must be a controlled process for AI systems using publicly available data to ensure creators retain control of their intellectual property’.
