UK peers warn weakening AI copyright law could hammer creative industries
Britain's creative industries will face significant damage unless the government strengthens AI copyright law, according to a House of Lords committee.
The nation behind some of the most recognizable names in music, film, and the arts could drift toward a scenario where a small number of US-based firms get the benefit and the harms to British creators grow, a report from the House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee said.
As the government considers its position on updating copyright law to accommodate the use of content by AI model builders, the peers said it would be a poor bet if it allowed changes to copyright that could undermine the UK's creative industries.
The report pointed out that creative industries were underpinned by a "gold standard" copyright regime and contributed £124 billion to the UK economy in 2023, while employing 2.4 million people. The AI sector, on the other hand, contributed just £12 billion in 2024 and employed 86,000 people.
Committee chair Baroness Barbara Keeley said: "Our creative industries face a clear and present danger from uncredited and unremunerated use of copyrighted material to train AI models. Photographers, musicians, authors and publishers are seeing their work fed into AI models which then produce imitations that take employment and earning opportunities from the original creators.
"AI may contribute to our future economic growth, but the UK creative industries create jobs and economic value now. In 2023, the creative industries delivered £124 billion of economic value to the UK and this is set to grow to £141 billion by 2030. Watering down the protections in our existing copyright regime to lure the biggest US tech companies is a race to the bottom that does not serve UK interests. We should not sacrifice our creative industries for AI jam tomorrow."
The report is skeptical about a new commercial text and data mining (TDM) exception for AI training mooted by the government and backed by some in the tech industry. It argues that a move toward TDM exceptions would harm rightsholders and stall the emerging licensing market.
The committee called on the government to make clear it will not seek to introduce a TDM exception with an opt-out mechanism for training commercial AI models. Instead, it should focus on strengthening UK protections for creators, including against unauthorized digital replicas and "in the style of" uses of creators' work and identity.
There are signs that the government's stance on AI copyright is weakening. In late 2024, it published a consultation document that included proposals for TDM exceptions for AI. This week, the Financial Times reported that ministers were set to delay making the contentious changes to UK copyright rules after a backlash from the creative industries.
In May last year, more than 400 of the UK's leading media and arts professionals wrote to the prime minister to support an amendment to the Data (Use and Access) Bill, which would offer the nation's creative industries transparency over copyrighted works ingested by AI models.
Music acts Paul McCartney, Elton John, and Coldplay all backed the move, as did writer/director Richard Curtis, artist Antony Gormley, and actor Ian McKellen. ®
