The UK government appears to have negotiated itself some breathing room in the battle for the future of the UK’s creative industries.
After lengthy debates – involving the Bill ‘ping ponging’ between the House of Commons and House of Lords six times! - the UK’s Data (Use and Access) Bill has finally been approved by the House of Lords without the inclusion of any substantive provisions to address the use of copyright material by AI models.
Despite being marketed by the UK’s government as a Bill to “unlock the secure and effective use of data for the public interest, without adding pressures to the country’s finances” and with the objectives of “growing the economy”, “improving UK public services” and “making people’s lives easier”, the Data (Use and Access) Bill has attracted significant controversy since its introduction on 23 October 2024.
The vast majority of the debate has revolved around the balance to be drawn between promoting the development of AI and protecting the UK’s creative industries. Certainly, the need to address this balancing act is not an issue unique to the UK and the difficulties being faced by the UK government (as well as any ultimate resolution) is likely to be of significant interest to legislators globally, including in Ireland.
In particular, the Lords wished to see an amendment to the Bill to ensure the protection of copyrighted material against unregulated and, potentially even more crucially, uncompensated mining by AI companies. Baroness Kidron, a filmmaker and digital rights advocate, led the charge with a proposed amendment which would have provided for regulations to be adopted to require any UK-linked trader operating a service which “includes the making available of an artificial intelligence (AI) model” to provide “copyright owners with clear, relevant, accurate and accessible information that will allow them to identify (a) the use of their copyright works used, and (b) the means by which those works were accessed, in the pre-training, training, fine-tuning and retrieval-augmented generation of the AI model, or any other data input to the AI model”. The ultimate objective of such information requirements seemed to be to give those copyright holders the opportunity to enforce their IP rights against AI companies and prevent unauthorised use of their IP assets in the absence of appropriate licensing arrangements.
This proposal was repeatedly rejected by the UK government in the House of Commons primarily on the basis that it would “involve charges on public funds”: a decision which attracted significant ire (including threats of legal action) from major players within the UK’s creative industries such as Sir Elton John and Sir Paul McCartney. As negotiations between the UK’s legislative chambers continued, further purported justifications around the complexity of the regulation involved and the need for additional drafting time also emerged.
Instead of introducing any major substantive requirements, the Data (Use and Access) Bill now requires that, within 9 months of its receiving Royal Assent, the Secretary of State will publish a report on “the use of copyright works in the development of AI systems” which must make proposals in respect of various issues including technical measures that could be used to control the accessing and / or use of copyrighted works when developing AI systems (in the UK or abroad), disclosure of information by AI developers around their access and / or use of copyrighted works and the granting of licences to developers of AI systems to do acts restricted by copyright (the “AI / Copyright Report”). An interim progress report must also be provided within 6 months of the Bill’s Royal Assent.
In the face of intense public pressure and global interest, the UK government appears, therefore, to have ‘kicked the can down the road’ for now. However, with the Bill expected to receive Royal Assent as early as July 2025, the nine-month deadline for the AI / Copyright Report continues to loom large. The UK government may be hoping that, by that stage, some level of guidance on the interaction between generative AI systems and traditional copyright law will have emerged from the English High Court, which, on 9 June 2025, began its hearing of liability issues in the Getty Images (US) Inc & Ors. v Stability AI Ltd proceedings (please see our previous Insight AI and Intellectual Property Rights – Cases To Watch in 2025 for details on these proceedings).
The interaction between AI and traditional IP assets has been a global talking point in recent years, following the emergence of a new, and more publicly-accessible, generation of Gen-AI models. With our cultural (and, indeed, geographical) closeness and shared legal history, any decisions made in the UK to address the issue are likely to draw particular attention and be treated as particularly persuasive in Ireland.
Indeed, with Ireland’s Regulation of Artificial Intelligence Bill included in the Spring 2025 Government Legislation Programme and currently being drafted, Irish legislators may soon face similar issues and demands. Although, in that regard, it is important to note that Ireland’s ability to carve its own path is more limited than that of the UK, being bound, for example, by the EU’s AI Act, which already contains some transparency obligations around data sources for some AI models, and the EU’s Copyright Directive, which already provides a copyright exemption for certain text and data mining.
Matheson’s Digital Economy Group is available to guide you through the complexities of navigating the ever increasing use of AI and new legislation being introduced in this area, so please do reach out to our team or your usual Matheson contact.
Similarly, for assistance on matters of intellectual property, please contact Technology and Innovation partner, Carlo Salizzo, Commercial Disputes and Investigations senior associate, Naoise Cosgrove, or your usual Matheson contact.
Our Digital Economy Group has published a comprehensive AI Guide for Businesses, which provides an overview of the AI Act, and will help you to understand the scope of your new obligations. Click here to access the AI Guide for Business.