UK blinks on AI copyright carve-out after star-studded revolt
- Reference: 1773927192
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2026/03/19/uk_ai_copyright/
- Source link:
The shift in stance follows complaints from leading figures in the creative industries – including [1]Paul McCartney, Elton John, Coldplay, writer/director Richard Curtis, artist Antony Gormley, and actor Ian McKellen – about plans to permit data scraping of copyrighted work unless the rights holder opts out.
"We have listened," said [2]science minister Liz Kendall . "We have engaged extensively with creatives, AI firms, industry bodies, unions, academics, and AI adopters, and that engagement has shaped our approach. This is why we can confirm today that the Government no longer has a preferred option."
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The government has published a report on copyright and AI and a separate [4]impact assessment [PDF] that points to an estimate from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which says AI adoption could add 0.4 to 1.3 percentage points to productivity. This could translate into an additional £55 billion to £140 billion in the UK's gross value added (GVA) by 2030. "These estimates are highly uncertain," the report notes.
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GVA from the UK's creative industries (CIs) is worth £146 billion, or nearly 6 percent of the UK's total GVA in 2024. £62 billion, or 42 percent of that, comes from the IT software and computer services subsector, including AI services and developers.
[7]UK peers warn weakening AI copyright law could hammer creative industries
[8]SerpApi says Google is the pot calling the kettle black when it comes to scraping
[9]Google presses play on 30-second Gemini musical slop generator
[10]Boffins probe commercial AI models, find an entire Harry Potter book
"The success of the AI sector and the CIs are intertwined. The CIs generate high-quality content that is needed to train the best AI models. Meanwhile, AI has the potential to transform creators' workflows, amplifying their productivity and giving them powerful new tools," the impact assessment said.
The government's " [11]Report on Copyright and Artificial Intelligence " [PDF] said "a broad copyright exception [for AI training] with opt-out is no longer the government's preferred way forward."
It proposes that the government works with industry experts to "develop best practice on input transparency and to identify best practice on technical tools and standards that may have positive outcomes in relation to licensing which will be kept under review."
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"We propose to keep market-led licensing approaches under review as the market for AI develops," the report said.
The government also said it would monitor litigation around AI and copyright in the UK and elsewhere, "including how secondary liability may apply to imported AI models placed on the UK market."
Creative Content Exchange (CCE) is set to test a range of commercial models for licensing and plans to launch an operational pilot platform in the summer. ®
Get our [13]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/12/uk_creatives_ai_letter/
[2] https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-statements/detail/2026-03-18/hcws1416
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2abwrtPrxIZ12MyHd1oy2bAAAAw0&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/69ba68f7c06ba9576435abb0/CP2602959_-_AI_and_Copyright_Impact_Assessment_Web.pdf
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44abwrtPrxIZ12MyHd1oy2bAAAAw0&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33abwrtPrxIZ12MyHd1oy2bAAAAw0&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/06/lords_ai_copyright/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/21/serpapi_google_scraping_lawsuit/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/18/google_musical_slop/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/09/boffins_probe_commercial_ai_models/
[11] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/69ba692226909a14239612e4/CP2602959_-_Report_on_Copyright_and_Artificial_Intelligence_web.pdf
[12] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44abwrtPrxIZ12MyHd1oy2bAAAAw0&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[13] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
The Inclosure Act springs to mind. Same principle. Fuck over the common folk to make the rich richer.
Enclosures happened from the middle ages onwards in response to growing populations. There were certainly plenty in the years just before the famine of the late 1310s although some of these would have reverted during the famine and the Black Death. The usual term was enclosure from the waste which was how the commons were usually expressed. An example is the second volume of the Wakefield manorial roles (William Paley Baildon Ed, 1906, Yorks Arch Soc Record Series V XXXVI). In 1307 successive courts worked they way round the graveships, each sitting granting man assarts (the technical term). (Archive .org has a lot of YAS publications.)
Although one identifiable pattern in upland Britain was to push settlement uphill (much the same thing happened later in the years leading up to the Famine in Ireland) another was to establish satellite hamlets along lanes just outside the common fields. I think that was due to the fact that if the fields surrounded a village they limited the number of houses that could be built inside them. The clue in documents is someone living "in the lane". The people making these settlements were the villagers, your "common folk".
Without bringing more land under intensive agriculture it would have been impossible to feed growing populations. The Parliamentary enclosures were just the last phase. If you really want a landlordism phenomenon to get your teeth into you should look into evictions which were the exact opposite of enclosure - getting rid of the population to graze manorial flocks where here had previously been cultivation and the consequent creation of rotten boroughs.
Why opt out?
Why is opt out even allowed to be a thing? It should only ever be opt in. Those who want access should have to do the work to get access. It should not be up to individuals to spend all their time finding who wants access to tell them no.
Obviously
In order to train AI to write code better and cheaper to replace human workers we need the model to copy Love Actually and old Beatles singles
Can't these silly actors see that?
Envelopes
So Paul McCartney - who didn't own his own catalogue for decades - is now the face of protecting creators' rights. Touching.
Let's be honest about what happened here. One set of corporate interests (AI companies wanting free training data) lost a lobbying battle to another set of corporate interests (major labels and publishers wanting a new licensing revenue stream). The celebrity names are the front. The actual beneficiaries are the entities that own the catalogues.
And the proposed solution tells you everything: "market-led licensing approaches" and a "commercial licensing pilot platform." That's not creator protection. That's the construction of a new rent-extraction layer where Universal Music Group negotiates bulk access deals and the bedroom producer gets nothing, exactly like streaming.
Funny how none of these famous voices were anywhere to be found while Spotify was paying £0.003 per stream and destroying the livelihoods of working musicians for fifteen years. Almost as if they only show up when the interests of the rights-holding infrastructure behind them are threatened.
The AI scraping exception was bad policy. But let's not pretend this is artists defeating big tech. This is big content defeating big tech, with famous faces stapled to the press release.
Re: Envelopes
>none of these famous voices were anywhere to be found while Spotify was paying £0.003 per stream
Because they remember the days when you not only didn't get paid anything for being on Radio but you had to provide cocaine and agreeable (very) young women to the DJs to get any play at all
That's a problem down the line
>> This is why we can confirm today that the Government no longer has a preferred option.
Why not have a preferred option: no copying/scraping by AI tools unless the copyright holder grants it? It's not that hard.
>> The government also said it would monitor litigation around AI and copyright in the UK and elsewhere,
Enrich the lawyers. Just think how unnecessary this would be if AI scraping was made a criminal offence. Haul the scrapers before the courts. Then time in the chokey for when they 'accidentally' break the law. Make it a strict liability offence.
Instead, the AI scrapers will scrape and copy as before.
Is this why they spell it LaboUr?
"We have listened," said science minister Liz Kendall.
"And we have U-turned. Again."
Maybe if they listened to the experts first, instead of to their SPADs, they'd be able to develop some coherent and joined-up policies. But probably not.
Re “The success of the AI sector and the CIs are intertwined”
Only if you let the “AI” companies walk all over …well …everyone
I cannot think of another industry in history that has had governments changing long-standing laws and rules to accommodate them AT THE EXPENSE of everyone else. In fact it’s not even “at the expense” - it’s outright theft and people are trying to change laws to make it officially legal theft - by (mostly) foreign business!