The Government’s long-awaited report on copyright and AI has been published. For UK creators and the creative industries, it signals a win for all those who have campaigned and lobbied hard on this issue over the past year.
Entitled A Report on Copyright & Artificial Intelligence it’s a response to the Government’s consultation on copyright and AI which has rowed back from a copyright exception. This would see rightsholders have to opt-out of their work being used to train Large Language Models. This was the Government’s controversial preferred option when it launched the consultation in December 2024. The result was a massive outcry which united the creative industries and led to sustained campaigning from unions.
In response to this development, it was hailed by the Writer’s Guild of Great Britain (WGGB) General Secretary, Ellie Peers, as representing a ‘win for collective action’ and ‘a step in the right direction on the road to a fair system that will protect and reward writers and other creators in an age of Artificial Intelligence’. However, she admitted that there was much work that still needs to be done to strengthen, not weaken, UK copyright law.
Writers need certainty around protection of their work as a matter of urgency. They need to step up their campaigning and lobbying, writing to their MP, attending protests, making a noise on social media and more.
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