In March 2026, the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, the Rt Hon Liz Kendall MP, made a statement on copyright and AI progress. According to Kendall: “We believe that people should be paid fairly for the work that they do. It should not be that only the big and powerful can assert their rights. We also believe that championing innovation is critical to new discoveries, creating growth, driving social mobility, and allowing new talent and ideas to break through”.
At the end of 2024, the UK government launched a consultation on copyright and AI, proposing a framework that would allow AI developers to train on copyrighted works while giving rightsholders the ability to opt out. Following pushback from creators and negotiations with AI firms, the government has now stepped back from its original position and no longer has a preferred way forward.
In this context, the government identified four areas where it will focus the next phase of this work:
- Digital Replicas
- Labelling AI-generated content.
- Creator control and transparency.
- Independent creatives.
The Publishers Association CEO, Dan Conway, said: “As the Publishers Association has long maintained, the UK’s gold-standard copyright regime is the foundation upon which growth and our world-leading creative and knowledge industries are built. Copyright is an enabler and a driver of UK competitive advantage, not an inhibitor, and the government should resoundingly dismiss any further tinkering with copyright as an alternative to the original exception. Alternative exception models – including those for science and research – must be taken off the table from this point. These exceptions have the potential to be even more damaging than the copyright exception initially proposed and are unjustifiable in the context of an established, growing AI licensing market. The significant positives in today’s announcement, in addition to the abandonment of the preferred exception, include the focus on transparency – on which we will continue to advocate strongly for legislative action – and on labelling to achieve clarity for readers in an increasingly polluted online retail space”.
You can read Content Superpower: UK publishing and the AI licensing market here: https://www.publishers.org.uk/publications/content-superpower-uk-publishing-ai-licensing-market/
On the launch of the report Conway said: “This first-of-its-kind report shows the UK has an opportunity to create a role for itself as an AI content superpower. It shows there is a willing and growing set of buyers, who value and are willing to pay for high-quality content and so it is no surprise that UK publishers’ content is in high demand. The incredible investment and expertise publishers bring to their work gives the UK an extraordinary competitive advantage on the world stage – and something that the UK government ignores at its peril.
“Ahead of the government announcing their next steps on AI and copyright, we are calling on them to seize the UK’s competitive advantage by ruling out any form of copyright exception for AI and legislating to introduce transparency requirements for AI developers.”
Mandy Hill, President of the Publishers Association and Managing Director of Academic at Cambridge University Press & Assessment, writes in the report’s introduction:
‘It is no surprise that UK publishers’ content is in demand. […] From the discovery and nurturing of bestselling novelists to the curation of highly cited journals, our industry has created, disseminated and invested in high-quality content for decades. […] As demand for high-quality content for AI grows, and the potential for great scientific breakthroughs expands, the UK should capitalise on its position as a global content superpower.’
IPA will continue to follow the UK development on copyright and AI.
Read the full statement here.