AI and copyright consultation: Government must regulate to help David against Goliath

Published March 19, 2026

Following the hotly debated and divisive consultation on AI and copyright last year, Tech Secretary Liz Kendall has today published her report, which lacks concrete reforms to support creatives against AI giants training on their copyrighted work for free. In particular, the Government will not be regulating the burgeoning licensing market.

Emily Nousios, Senior Associate and AI expert at national law firm Foot Anstey, argues that while a long-awaited response to the consultation is a positive step, the Government must look to regulate the licensing market that has sprung up to help level the playing field.

In her comments (below), Emily argues that a regulated licensing market would help the UK on the world stage, positioning itself as a solid middle ground between the US and EU, while allowing developers to use the UK as a sandbox to enter the EU market – a win-win situation. She also welcomes the Government’s recognition that deepfakes are a growing concern and must be regulated.

“Today’s AI and copyright debate is a classic case of David and Goliath. While lacking any specific regulatory proposals, the Government’s long-awaited announcement is a welcome step for creators who are demanding fair remuneration for their work. An opt-out approach hasn’t provided enough protection for copyright holders, many of whom are significantly smaller than the large AI companies that are seeking to train on their copyright works for free. Further clarification on measures to change this will help create a more level playing field.

“In the UK, we are ideally placed to support our world-leading creative industries. Regulatory guidance from the Government would be welcome, but in the meantime, a healthy licensing market has developed, which allows copyright holders to charge developers for training AI models on their work. While a licensing system is ideal for helping support the interests of both AI developers and creators, it would benefit greatly from regulatory support. A regulated licensing system would establish the UK as a healthy middle ground between the stricter regime enforced by the EU AI Act and proposed by the EU Commission, and the laissez-faire approach in the US. Shifting away from the US model and towards the EU allows the UK to become a gateway to the EU market, as AI developers looking to train their models in one jurisdiction could also meet the regulatory requirements needed to access the other.

“One underdiscussed benefit of the licensing system is that it encourages AI developers to seek out the highest-quality data to train their models on. In an opt-out regime, models are often trained on a high volume of subpar material scraped from the Internet. If AI developers require a licence to train their models, they’re incentivised to take a more targeted approach, which they may find will result in a stronger, more robust model in the long term.

“While the creative industries have rightly demanded a fair hearing in protecting their copyrighted work, AI developers must also have a seat at the table in deciding how they can viably train their models. In particular, AI developers will be looking closely at the transparency rules the UK chooses to adopt. At present, the UK and US have no requirements for developers to disclose what data they’ve trained on or how the models have been trained, turning AI models into ‘black boxes’. While developers argue that an opaque training diet is vital to retain their competitive edge, it makes enforcing regulations nearly impossible. While transparency is important to ensure copyright holders are protected, this must be carefully weighed with ensuring we foster a competitive AI sector in the UK. More development for sovereign AI is not only good for the UK economy, but it also helps reduce an over-reliance on US development.

“Deepfakes have been a substantial international problem, and it’s positive to see the UK Government has identified this as a growing concern. They might adopt the image rights framework already in place in Guernsey or go further than this and follow Denmark in implementing personality rights as part of copyright law and criminalising the unauthorised creation of deepfakes.”