The Home of Lords Communications and Digital Committee has urged the UK authorities to provide critical consideration to the impression of synthetic intelligence (AI) on unique content material.
The Communications and Digital Committee’s AI, copyright and the inventive industries – 4th report of session 2024-26, printed on 6 March 2026, warned that it might be a really “poor wager” for the federal government to permit modifications to copyright that would undermine the UK’s inventive industries.
The report’s authors questioned tech trade claims that introducing a brand new business textual content and knowledge mining (TDM) exception for AI coaching would considerably develop the AI sector. They warned that weakening the UK’s copyright legislation on this manner would exacerbate current harms to rightsholders and stall the rising licensing market.
A number of the witnesses who gave proof informed the committee that technical measures are important in supporting attribution, transparency, licensing and remuneration in a licensing-first system.
John Collomosse, director of DECaDE, the UKRI Subsequent Stage Centre for the Decentralised Digital Financial system, informed the committee that, at every stage of the AI lifecycle, the problem going through rightsholders is how one can meaningfully management whether or not their work is used and below what phrases, and the way they will achieve a possibility to share within the worth created by the mannequin outputs.
One other witness, Eugene Huang, senior technique advisor and co-founder of ProRata.ai, mentioned there must be mechanisms in place that may help remuneration linked to each inputs and outputs of AI fashions.
One of many proposed methods to guard copyrighted content material is the thought of open provenance requirements, such because the Coalition for Content material Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA) specification, which, when mixed with watermarking and fingerprinting, would imply sturdy, machine-readable alerts are connected to particular person belongings.
The committee was informed that this may should be created “at supply” by creators and rightsholders to allow stakeholders alongside sector-specific provide chains to know this knowledge and handle it successfully.
Collomosse mentioned that after provenance is established on this manner, it turns into simpler to substantiate authenticity and “assign possession”. He mentioned rightsholders may then “arrange their very own preferences and licensing schemes on high of that utilizing different requirements”, enabling remuneration fashions to be layered onto particular person belongings slightly than relying solely on blanket licensing.
The committee is asking on the federal government to develop a licensing-first regime, underpinned by strong transparency, that safeguards creators’ livelihoods whereas supporting sustainable AI development.
Committee chair Barbara Keeley warned: “Our inventive industries face a transparent and current hazard from uncredited and unremunerated use of copyrighted materials to coach AI fashions. Photographers, musicians, authors and publishers are seeing their work fed into AI fashions, which then produce imitations that take employment and incomes alternatives from the unique creators.”
Watering down the protections in our current copyright regime to lure the most important US tech corporations is a race to the underside that doesn’t serve UK pursuits Barbara Keeley, Communications and Digital Committee
The trade’s response appeared to point out there’s much less urge for food for such controls.
Within the report, Google argued that, whereas governments could also be tempted to advertise a “one-size-fits-all” normal, it can be crucial that trade retains “flexibility and room for the evolution of requirements and greatest practices”.
Meta mentioned prescribing particular approaches “would threat freezing in time the present state of growth whereas new requirements and new instruments are nonetheless rising, locking the UK out as the remainder of the world continues to innovate”.
Microsoft mentioned any legislative strategy ought to recognise that provenance instruments don’t work equally effectively for all sorts of content material, stay “know-how agnostic”, and keep away from mandating necessities in areas “the place they don’t seem to be but possible or efficient”.
Keeley famous that whereas AI might contribute to future financial development, the UK inventive industries create jobs and financial worth now. “Watering down the protections in our current copyright regime to lure the most important US tech corporations is a race to the underside that doesn’t serve UK pursuits. We must always not sacrifice our inventive industries for AI jam tomorrow,” she mentioned.
“The federal government ought to now clarify it won’t pursue a brand new textual content and knowledge mining exception with an opt-out mechanism for coaching business AI fashions. As an alternative, it ought to deal with strengthening UK protections for creators, together with in opposition to unauthorised digital replicas and ‘within the model of’ makes use of of creators’ work and identification,” Keeley added.
“The federal government’s process must be to create the situations that may permit a licensing-first strategy to AI coaching to flourish, backed by efficient transparency necessities and technical requirements for knowledge provenance and labelling, in order that rightsholders and builders can take part confidently on this rising market,” she continued.
Keeley known as on the federal government and AI trade within the UK to be based mostly on clear and accountable use of coaching knowledge. “We’re calling on the federal government to embrace the alternatives this presents, and to display its dedication to the UK’s gold-standard copyright regime and our excellent inventive industries in its forthcoming financial evaluation and replace on AI and copyright,” she mentioned.
