Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
[...] When the UK government launched a public consultation on AI and copyright in early 2025, it likely didn't expect to receive a near-unanimous dressing-down. But of the roughly 10,000 responses submitted through its official “Citizen Space” platform, just 3% supported the government's preferred policy for regulating how AI uses copyrighted material for training. A massive 88% backed a stricter approach focused on rights-holders.
The survey asked for opinions on four possible routes the UK might take to address what rules should apply when AI developers train their models on books, songs, art, and other copyrighted works. The government’s favored route was labeled Option 3 and offered a compromise where AI developers had a default right to use copyrighted material as long as they disclosed what they used, and offered a way for those with the rights to the material to opt out. But most who responded disagreed.
Option 3 received the least support. Even the “do nothing” option of just leaving the law vague and inconsistent polled better. More people would prefer no reform at all than accept the government's suggestion. That level of disapproval is hard to spin.
It's a triumph for the campaign by writers’ unions, music industry groups, visual artists, and game developers seeking exactly this result. They spent months warning about a future where creative work becomes free fuel for unlicensed AI engines.
The artists argued that the fight was over consent as much as royalties. They argued that having creative work swept up into a training dataset without permission means the damage is done, even if you can opt out months later. And they pointed out that the UK’s copyright laws weren’t built for AI. Copyright in the UK is automatic, not registered, which is great for flexibility, but tough for any enforcement, as there's no central database of copyright ownership.
Officials crafted Option 3 to try to appease all sides. The government's stated aim was to stimulate AI innovation while still respecting creators. A transparent opt-out mechanism would let developers build useful models while giving artists a way to refuse. But it ultimately felt to many creators like all the burden fell on them, and they would have to constantly monitor how their work is used, sometimes across borders, languages, and platforms they’ve never heard of.
That's likely why 88% of respondents went for requiring licenses for everything as their preferred choice. If an AI model were to be implemented, wanting to train on your book, your voice, your illustration, or your photography, it would have to ask, and potentially pay first.
A final report and economic impact assessment from the government is due in March. It will evaluate the legal, commercial, and cultural implications of each option. Officials say they will consider input from creators, tech firms, small businesses, and other stakeholders. Clearly the government's hope to smoothly start implementing its prefeerred appraoch won't happen.
For now, the confusing status quo remains. Without a court ruling or legislative fix, uncertainty reigns. AI developers don’t know what’s allowed. Creators don’t know what’s protected. Everyone's waiting for clarity that keeps getting delayed.
What happens next could shape the UK's digital economy for years. If officials side with the 3% who backed their initial plan, they risk alienating the very creators whose work is so valuable. But stronger licensing rules would undoubtedly face resistance from AI startups and international tech firms. Either way, the fighting is far from over.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Thursday February 05, @03:06AM (2 children)
Hogwash. AI developers like the status quo because in practice they're allowed to do whatever they want. And they probably "convinced" the government to back their preferred policy because they know enforcing it is basically impossible - good luck proving in court that you opted out properly and that an AI bot definitely used your work.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 05, @04:48AM
In the recent Anthropic class action settlement (over $1B), the lawyers were able to obtain a list(s) of books used for training. Having a registered copyright (in USA?) appears to have been sufficient to prove the desire to opt out. Average class action payouts are anticipated at about USD $3000 per infringed work (book).
Saw recently that another AI infringer has a similar (perhaps larger) class action shit against them, sorry, forgot details but it sounded similar to the Anthropic case.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday February 05, @05:40PM
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Thursday February 05, @08:43AM (2 children)
There's no international treaty in place preventing any country from training their AI models on other nations' copyrighted material and renting it back to them. So, whether the creatives' lobbies understand it or not, they're pushing for a Brexit off the internet by trying to make the UK government block models that don't follow local laws.
compiling...
(Score: 3, Touché) by PiMuNu on Thursday February 05, @10:47AM (1 child)
That is already happening. Australia banning under 16s from social media, UK banning under 18s from pron. Balkanisation of the internet is now a fact and will go further. So UK will lose access to copyright infringing LLMs. Big deal?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by RamiK on Thursday February 05, @12:58PM
This isn't simply about the internet. It's about not being able to export industrial copyrights and patents in fear of them being AI-washed. And the problem isn't that it's happening but that it's happening without people understanding the ramifications it will have on the UK economy.
compiling...
(Score: 2) by RedGreen on Thursday February 05, @09:44AM (2 children)
I am truly shocked. That one of those bastions of doing things correctly the government has got something wrong. HAHAHAHAHA who am I kidding they are lucky to find their ass with both hands, the only time the headlines should be out there screaming anything is when those God damn fools in government actually get something correct for a change, an extreme rarity in my lifetime of experience watching them do things.
"Cervantes definitely was prescient in describing a senile Don fighting against windmills." -- larryjoe on /.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by PiMuNu on Thursday February 05, @11:04AM (1 child)
Actually this is government doing it *right*. The process is:
1. Think about new legislation
2. Ask:- this is our best effort, what do you think
3. Revise
Okay, so they screwed up on (1). But the process is there to catch screw ups.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday February 05, @05:49PM
(Score: 2) by DadaDoofy on Thursday February 05, @12:26PM
It's encouraging, and frankly quite surprising, that 88% of people in the UK still believe in private property. Indeed it is, "a triumph for the campaign by writers’ unions, music industry groups, visual artists, and game developers"
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Thursday February 05, @01:02PM (1 child)
Bullshit. You create something, and put it on the market. Someone buys it. It is theirs to do with as they choose.
We are seeing similar crap in the US, based on political leanings and ideology. "Artists" announce that people on the right may not attend their concerts, may not listen to their music, and they won't perform at the White House so long as the "wrong" president is in office. Restaurants and coffee shops ban people from the premises based on what color hats they wear.
It's all bullshit. When I buy a copy of your song, or whatever, I can do as I damned well please with it. Rent seekers can do deep knee bends over a prickly pear cactus, they have no say. They gave consent when they put it on the market, and accepted payment for the product.
It only remains to establish what a "fair payment" is here. And, of course, the rent seekers want the highest payment they can possibly get. Just like a bank robber wants to get a billion dollar payout for his efforts.
I'm going to buy my defensive radar from Temu, just like Venezuela!
(Score: 3, Touché) by khallow on Thursday February 05, @01:21PM
One thing isn't like the others. Last I checked no one is forced to play at the Whitehouse nor is that a silly exercise of copyright. Now, if you had said that they insist their music not be played at the Whitehouse, that would be in inline with the other stuff.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday February 05, @04:28PM (1 child)
As a kid I used a "learn to draw" book to make poor quality drawings of cartoon woody woodpecker(tm). Some decades later I like to imagine I could still churn out really bad woody woodpecker(tm) drawings.
Copyright should not stop creative people from generating something creative from a copyrighted inspiration.
People who know nothing about copyright law think that if I see a picture of a dandelion flower in a copyrighted gardening book, then I draw a funny meme of a dandelion flower that vaguely resembles the pic I saw a long time ago, somehow I personally am violating the copyright of the gardening book. Not so, as a creative interpretation my drawing is copyright me, today, not the gardening book from years ago.
What DOES apply, and people often are confused by, is trademark law. I can't sell hand drawings of woody woodpecker(tm) identified as "a woody woodpecker(tm) drawing". I could sell drawings that don't infringe, maybe an IRL woodpecker bird thats not anthropomorphized like WW.
"most" of the arguments against AI That are reported by people who know nothing about the law as "copyright" problems are actually "trademark" problems. If you pay money for someone to provide you a drawing or video of Superman(tm) and Superwoman(tm) "greatly enjoying each others company in a biologically reproductive sense" that is a major trademark violation expect to be sued.
If you ask a rando human to "use your years of reading shitty fantasy novels to create an imaginary NPC to meet at the Inn in our next DnD session" that is 100% legal. I read tons of copyrighted works to create that creative work of art, but that doesn't matter. As long as I'm not dumb enough to rip off a trademarked character like, say, Frodo(tm) from LotR(tm), I'm safe.
AI should be about the same. If I can read copyrighted material, including for free at the public library...
The danger of going down the path of anything copyrighted "deserves" infinite rent-extraction is it can and will be applied to humans. Every time I as a human solve a simple math problem, say, calculating a percentage tip at a restaurant in my head, how much money should I be required to send not one, but every, copyrighted elementary school textbook I was forced to read in elementary school? If I swear on a bible in a courtroom that I never read the textbook before doing the homework, which in some cases is probably even true, do I still have to pay the copyright tax on something I learned independent of the copyright holder decades ago? If I quote "Romeo and Juliette" verbally in private to another person, which 1980s copyrighted printed version from my middle school English class, do I owe the money to for violating the book's copyright by making that quote? Will I be permitted to legally prove I read a copy of the play where the copyright expired decades ago (it's pretty old...)?
The government can and should come down like a stack of bricks on trademark violations, especially commercial trademark violations, but I don't see any good outcome for copyright law abuse as an anti-AI weapon.
Another good topic is plagiarism, and abuse of plagiarism laws. If as a human I quote and properly attribute the front page of the New York Times as containing an article with the title "Research Finds Interaction With Father, Not Mother, Affects Child Health" (from the NYT website for Feb 5 2026) that is just a factually accurate and correctly cited quotation in a discussion of child health or father's rights or whatever. Anti-AI activists think they will "fix" everything by requiring payment every time a properly cited quotation is made, but I think that will F things up for humans a lot more than it'll F things up for AI.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday February 05, @05:59PM
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/1513 [gutenberg.org]
Romeo and Juliet was probably always public domain in the United States. Still, public domain books/etc. haven't really been a thing the average user cared about all that much until the advent of computers. (Except for cost of cheaper reprints.) Computers all of a sudden allowed the average person to have a giant library of books on your computer without taking up the physical space having 1,000 or even 100,000 or 1,000,000 books would require.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday February 05, @04:48PM (1 child)
No one can seem to explain why, in the context of
https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/2-43-advanced-thermodynamics-spring-2024/pages/syllabus/ [mit.edu]
If I read a copy of the official course book, and later use it at work or just shitpost online, I owe the publisher, Dover, of "Thermodynamics: Foundations and Applications." absolutely nothing. They don't get a penny every time I calculate the junction temperature of a heatsinked transistor, for example. Not a penny of hobby money, not a penny of salary back when I had a salary, not a penny of contract revenue. Not one penny.
However, if an AI learned how to calculate temperature drop across a heatsink of a certain thermal resistance, and some dumbass vibe-engineered an amplifier, somehow magically the publisher "earned" some money.
What if I use a CAD/CAM program and finite element software to model the heatsink in detail? Who pays, the developers of the Python language, the cad software, or me? Currently the answer is, of course, no one. But the UK being the failed state that it is, after they successfully go after AI they will go after the humans and you can expect a knock on the door "oi mate you got a license to add 1+1 in your head?" if they catch you doing math.
Do I only owe the publisher money in perpetuity if I use a computer? If I use the back of an envelope and hand waving its free or is that full charge for applying the copyrighted equation?
Note that in 2026 you can't copyright an equation. The argument seems to be if an AI uses a copyrighted equation they owe the publisher but a possible outcome is any work containing non-copyrightable content now has a void copyright. I don't think this is what the publishers and authors were hoping for, but AI could annihilate non-fiction textbooks in a less direct manner than using sophistry question techniques to teach; imagine a world where putting an equation in ink means the product is now public domain... interesting.
The irony is "Thermodynamics: Foundations and Applications." isn't as good of a book as Schroeder's thermodynamics book which I've been casually re-reading last couple weeks recreationally. So who gets the "payout" the folks who wrote the official textbook for class or the folks who wrote the book you actually use? Not a casual question, think about electrodynamics do the "Div Grad Curl and all that" authors get the cash or does Griffith get it for his "intro to electrodynamics" or whatever its exact title textbook? Well it depends on what kind of electrodynamics question you're talking about, I guess. Isn't it simpler not to pay either, like humans do (do not do?)
(Score: 2) by DadaDoofy on Thursday February 05, @05:59PM
You are missing a very basic point. After you pay for the book, the act reading it does not infringe because it doesn't earn you money. Even when you apply what you learned in the book to perform a job you get paid for, it's completely different than simply copying what's in the book into an LLM and selling the regurgitated content to a paying customer.
It's also helpful to keep in mind, while you can legally sell a book you bought to a used book store, it's not legal to make photocopies of the book you bought and sell them.