Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment her Department had made of the adequacy of existing legislation to ensure copyright protections across the creative industries.

The government recognises the importance of the UKs copyright regime to the economic success of the creative industries, one of eight growth-driving sectors as identified in our Industrial Strategy. We are committed to supporting rights holders by ensuring they retain control over and receive fair payment for their work, especially as technology advances to include AI. We are actively working with stakeholders to ensure copyright protections remain robust and fit for purpose.

Although existing legislation gives creative rights holders control over the use of their protected works, we are aware that this can be very difficult to implement in practice in the context of AI, especially for individual firms and creators. The application of existing copyright legislation in the context of AI training is disputed, both in the UK and internationally, with many high-profile court cases underway. Right holders are finding it difficult to control use of their works to train AI models, and want greater ability to manage that activity and be paid for it.

Responses to our Copyright and AI consultation, published 17 December and closing 25 February, will inform our approach to the design and delivery of a solution to the current dispute over copyright legislation. Our aim is to clarify the copyright framework for AI – delivering legal certainty through a copyright regime that provides creators with real control, transparency, and helps them licence their content, while supporting AI developers' access to high-quality material, so that they can train leading AI models in the UK.