The UK government is seeking to accommodate both creative industries and the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) as key drivers of the UK economy.
A balancing act by the government of UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is pitting the country’s lucrative creative industries against the interests of equally lucrative AI companies. Following a recent round of consultations, the UK government is now in process of formulating economic policy to balance intellectual property rights, AI training data and the future of the UK’s digital economy.
The UK government presented its latest proposal for consultation with industry stakeholders in December 2024. That consultation ended on February 25, 2025.
The proposal focused on government plans to provide a “text and data mining” exemption to settled copyright protections allowing AI companies to “scrape” or “data mine” copyrighted materials for AI development and training without permission, or payment. Under the proposal, copyright owners could “opt out” of the scheme, with no clear mechanism for doing so being suggested.
Official Announcement
At the end of last year, the UK’s Department for Science, Innovation and Technology launched a 10-week consultation on proposals to provide clarity on how AI developers can legally use copyrighted materials to train AI models going forward. Given the potential economic benefits from AI to the UK economy, a key consideration is whether to allow AI companies greater access to copyrighted works without explicit permission, a move that has drawn sharp criticism from rights holders in the creative sectors.
According to the UK government’s consultation document, the aim is to deliver a copyright and AI framework that “rewards human creativity, incentivises innovation and provides the legal certainty required for long-term growth in both sectors.” The government acknowledges that the current situation “risks limiting investment, innovation, and growth in the AI sector, and in the wider economy,” and seeks to address these challenges through the consultation process.
The UK acknowledged the complexity of the issue and invited input from stakeholders across the board before finalizing any policy changes. That consultation is now closed.
It follows an earlier abandoned plan by the UK to introduce a broad copyright exemption for AI training, which was widely criticized by the creative industry and ultimately shelved in 2023.
Who’s Talking?
The Creative Industries Push Back
Music Business Worldwide has reported on a submission to the UK’s consultation from Sony Music, a global leader in the rights management of IP from some of the world’s most popular British singers and song-writers. Sony’s submission, obtained by both the Financial Times and The Sunday Times, argued that AI data mining of copyright material directly contributes to AI generated songs that infringe on the economic interests of their artists.
It’s now reported that Sony has already sent over 75,000 “takedown” requests related to AI-generated materials that feature a number of its most popular artists, including Harry Styles, Queen and Beyancé.
The concern extends beyond music.
The Guardian reports that UK policymakers are considering provisions that would allow tech companies “free use” of copyrighted materials for AI training. Under the UK Copyright Act, there is an exemption to permission and payment for use of copyright materials commonly referred to as the “fair use” exemption.
According to the UK’s Intellectual Property Office, the fair use exemption applies only to non-commercial use of copyright material under very limited circumstances.
The UK’s move to expand that exemption, specifically for development of the highly commercial AI sector, has alarmed creatives, who fear that government supported “free use” really just means, “for free”.
Owen Meredith, head of the News Media Association told the Guardian, “News publishers deserve control over when and how their content is used and, crucially, fair remuneration for its use.”
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However, Chris Bryant MP, as Data Protection Minister, is quoted in the same article as saying, “This is about giving greater control [ … ] to creators and rights holders, and we intend it to lead to more licensing of content, which is potentially a new revenue stream for creatives.”
Why It Matters
Copyright protection under the UK’s Copyright Act is the cornerstone of Britain’s leading role in the global Media & Entertainment industry. Without clear, protective copyright laws this lucrative industry crumbles. The only legal means to generate revenues from content, whether that be production or exhibition, is by means of license from the original copyright creator.
The most recent figures from the UK Government show that the creative industries contributed £124 billion in value to the British economy in 2023, equal to 5.2% of the UK economy as a whole.
AI companies, in contrast, contributed just over £5.8 billion in 2023, according to the UK government with over £14 billion in revenues. According to the US International Trade Administration, however, the UK AI market was worth over US$21 billion (£16.81 billion/15 Nov. 2023) and will be worth over US$1 trillion by 2035 (£770 billion at today’s exchange rate).
The question remains who those AI companies are worth the most to: the UK government, the US government or to the AI company owners themselves.
There is a clear policy incentive to cultivate domestic AI companies in the UK and to lure those in the US to expand further into the UK. Successive UK governments clearly see the need to accommodate growth in the AI sector for the benefit of the British economy as a global competitor.
The only real issue is that, for much of the past several years, AI companies have been effectively using protected copyright material to develop and train their now lucrative products, often without compensation to copyright owners in clear contravention of well-established UK law.
As reported in the Guardian, ChatGPT’s owner OpenAI has admitted that it would be, impossible to train AI models without the use of copyright material. A growing number of creatives are, “demanding compensation for the use of their work to build those [AI] models”.
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