Join the campaign: How DACS has responded to the UK Government's Copyright and AI Consultation
In December 2024, the UK Government announced an open consultation on proposals around copyright and artificial intelligence, inviting feedback on proposals which support the Government's objectives for AI and copyright.
These objectives are stated as:
- Supporting right holders’ control of their content and ability to be remunerated for its use.
- Supporting the development of world-leading AI models in the UK by ensuring wide and lawful access to high-quality data.
- Promoting greater trust and transparency between the sector.
The Government’s preferred option is: “A data mining exception which allows right holders to reserve their rights, underpinned by supporting measures on transparency.”
DACS welcomes the Government’s objectives in the AI and Copyright consultation to give artists, and other rightsholders, more control over the use of their work in AI training, however we do not support the Government’s proposal to deliver this through an extended text and data mining exception and rights reservation mechanism.
Why don't we support this, and what are we calling for?
We believe this approach will fail to support rightsholder control of their content, and will not enable remuneration for use of their work. Further, there are currently no viable rights reservation solutions that would give artists meaningful control over the use of their work, especially when art and images are readily distributed by third parties.
Our response to the consultation emphasises that the strongest route to ensuring the policy objectives of control, access and transparency are met is to ensure that AI developers are – like many other industries around the world – acting in compliance with copyright law.
DACS considers that licensing copyright, through collective or blanket licences coupled with transactional and bespoke licensing for specific uses, will not only deliver the fair rewards to artists and other creators, but bring legal certainty to technology companies, in turn improving public trust in their AI applications.
In our response, which we will be sharing more details on in the coming weeks, we have made the following recommendations:
- The Government should not adopt its proposed text and data mining exception, but look to encourage licensing instead. We urge Government to enhance growth and productivity of the creative and cultural industries, rather than placing extra burdens and administration on both creators and publicly-funded cultural institutions.
- The Government should support the UK’s strong copyright framework by encouraging copyright licensing, bringing benefits to creators and certainty to AI developers.
- The Government should demand greater levels of transparency from AI developers, who should disclose what material has been used to train their models, where and when this material was accessed, and whether permission from rightsholders had been obtained.
Support our recommendations!
If you would like to show support for our recommendations, you can:
- Share across social media using the assets available to download below.
- Write to your MP in support of the Creative Rights in AI Coalition.
