UK Government Publishes Report and Impact Assessment on Copyright and Artificial Intelligence, March 2026

On 19 March 2026, the UK Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) published a report titled "Copyright and Artificial Intelligence" together with a supporting impact assessment. The documents address the legal treatment of copyright-protected works used to train AI models and the application of the existing text and data mining (TDM) exception under section 29A of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA 1988). The publication follows two earlier stages of public consultation and does not constitute a legislative amendment; it sets out the government's current policy position and proposes a preferred option for further legislative action.

The governing provision is section 29A CDPA 1988, which permits TDM of lawfully accessed works for the purposes of research or study, without requiring rightsholder consent. The government's preferred option would extend this exception to cover commercial AI training on lawfully accessed content, subject to an opt-out mechanism allowing rightsholders to reserve their works. The report also addresses the transparency obligations proposed for AI developers, requiring disclosure of training data at a level sufficient for copyright owners to assess whether their works have been used. The impact assessment quantifies costs and benefits across creative industries, AI developers, and the broader economy.

AI developers training models on UK-sourced or UK-protected content face direct exposure under this regime. Where an opt-out is validly exercised by a rightsholder, the developer may not invoke the TDM exception and must obtain a licence or exclude the work from the training corpus. Creators and rights-holding organisations in the music, publishing, visual arts, and news sectors gain a mechanism to restrict use of their catalogues without requiring active litigation. Entities operating under EU data permits or other jurisdictional regimes will need to assess whether UK-specific opt-outs affect cross-border training pipelines.

The report does not yet constitute enacted law. DSIT has indicated that further legislative steps are required to implement the preferred option, and no implementation date has been announced. The government has confirmed it will not replicate the EU AI Act's approach to training data disclosure directly, but seeks interoperability with international standards. The opt-out mechanism's technical specifications — including the format, registry, and enforcement pathway — remain subject to further consultation. Pending legislation, the existing section 29A exception continues to apply only to non-commercial research and study uses.

Licentium advises on AI and intellectual property law matters, including training data compliance, rights clearance, and licensing strategy for developers and content owners across UK and international jurisdictions. We maintain a dedicated partner network covering copyright law, AI regulation, and digital content licensing. Contact us to discuss your position under the proposed UK regime. Examples of matters we handle or assign to partners: AI training data compliance reviews, TDM exception analysis, rightsholder opt-out implementation, AI transparency disclosure obligations, and cross-border copyright licensing.

Source: UK Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, "Copyright and Artificial Intelligence" report and impact assessment, published 19 March 2026. Official URL: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/copyright-and-artificial-intelligence/outcome/copyright-and-artificial-intelligence-consultation-outcome. Confirmed 23 March 2026.

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