[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/uk-protest.jpg?w=1024″]<\/p>\n
\n\tJust days after the US Supreme Court said it would not reconsider whether art generated by artificial intelligence can receive copyright protection, the UK has looked set to make its own major decision on AI and copyright.<\/p>\n
\n\tFor the past two months, the UK government has been consulting on a legal overhaul of its intellectual property laws, with a particular focus on AI. An economic impact assessment, along with an update on the consultation, is due on March 18, with final results to follow sometime afterward.<\/p>\n
\n\tOne of the main proposals, according to the Guardian<\/em>, would allow AI firms such as OpenAI and Anthropic to use copyright-protected material without the owner\u2019s consent. The idea has understandably drawn considerable backlash from artists\u2014Elton John called the government \u201cabsolute losers\u201d over the proposal\u2014as well as from members of Parliament.<\/p>\n \n\tOn Friday, the House of Lords\u2019 Communications and Digital Committee published its own report on AI and copyright, warning that such proposals risk destroying the UK\u2019s \u00a3124 billion creative industry for \u201cspeculative AI gains.\u201d The report also called for an \u201copt-out\u201d model allowing copyright holders to exclude their work from AI training, greater transparency requirements for AI developers, and support for tools that encourage a \u201clicensing-first approach\u201d to incorporating content into AI systems.<\/p>\n \n\tAs the committee\u2019s chair, Baroness Barbara Keeley, noted in a statement, AI models are already using artists\u2019 work without consent. \u201cOur creative industries face a clear and present danger from uncredited and unremunerated use of copyrighted material to train AI models,\u201d Keeley said. \u201cPhotographers, 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.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tBut any hope that the consultation process will quickly resolve the issue may need to be tempered. Also on Friday, the Financial Times<\/em> reported that a source close to the consultation said the copyright question will likely be \u201ckicked down the road.\u201d The plan, it seems, is to spend another year gathering evidence and exploring different options, a move being framed as a concession to artists\u2019 protests over the proposals so far.<\/p>\n \n\tTech companies such as Alphabet have said they support the proposed opt-out model, while film studios and TV companies have argued that it is unfair and poses an \u201cexistential threat\u201d to their industries. (It is worth noting that digital opt-out systems\u2014like those used for cookies or ad tracking\u2014tend to result in far more users effectively consenting than opt-in systems.)<\/p>\n \n\tBut as many observers in the media industry have noted, with tech companies pressing ahead on AI development, even a delay in new rules will benefit them far more than the artists the delay is ostensibly meant to appease.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/news\/uk-government-ai-copyright-rules-decision-1234775962\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/uk-protest.jpg?w=1024″] Just days after the US Supreme Court said it would not reconsider whether art generated by artificial intelligence can receive copyright protection, the UK has looked set to make its own major decision on AI and copyright. For the past two months, the UK government has been consulting on a legal overhaul […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-1812793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1812793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1812793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1812793\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1812793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1812793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1812793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}