Report on Copyright and Artificial Intelligence (s.136 DUA Act statutory report)

“If this legislation is approved, those protections would now include a performer's voice and likeness, making Tennessee the first state in the nation to preserve individual voice, image and likeness against irresponsible and unethical AI in the form of deep fakes and audio cloning.”

“While Tennessee’s preexisting law protected name, image, and likeness, it did not specifically address new, personalized generative AI cloning models and services that enable human impersonation and allow users to make unauthorized fake works in the image and voice of others.”

“I'm here today to testify in support of the NO FAKES Act. Our members believe that AI technology, left unregulated, poses an existential threat to their ability to, one, require consent for the creative use of their digital representation.”

Speaker: Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, SAG-AFTRA National Executive Director. Third-party verbatim transcript.

“The government’s consultation, along with its preferred policy option on AI and copyright, fails to address the real issue. The UK’s gold standard copyright law is already clear; what is missing is robust enforcement and transparency requirements that empower creative businesses to assert their rights.”

News Media Association (UK); statement of chief executive Owen Meredith. Coded support relative to the transparency ask; the quoted sentence criticises the government's preferred opt-out option.

“Big Tech needs to pay for the creative and research content they hoover up to train AI, just as they pay for their electricity and other normal costs of running a legally compliant business. We urgently need transparency regulations to lift the lid on AI usage”

Statement of CEO Dan Conway.

“SAG-AFTRA members and those who rely on their face and voice for their livelihood will be able to demand platforms remove illegal voice and image clones. Creatives will also be able to seek damages from those who intentionally cause harm.”

“this legislation that provides balanced and effective protections for all individuals against exploitative uses of their voice and likeness while supporting free speech, reducing litigation and achieving the promise of AI technology”

“Yesterday techUK wrote to the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology Peter Kyle MP to reiterate our position that the Data (Use and Access) Bill is the wrong legislative vehicle to address the complex issue of AI and copyright.”

“Despite actively acknowledging that creative work is being stolen at scale, the Government chose once again to remove transparency provisions your Lordships provided, allowing the tech sector to continue to rob the creative industries blind.”

“This bill helps to achieve that commonsense goal by creating an administrative subpoena process that allows copyright owners to obtain information from AI companies about the works used to train their models. As the Guild has long recognized, this kind of transparency is essential to giving authors the ability to enforce their rights.”

“Artists deserve to know when their works are used and determine the parameters – the Transparency & Responsibility for Artificial Intelligence Networks (TRAIN) Act empowers rightsholders with valuable insight into which specific inputs AI companies are copying to train their models. Just as importantly, it also ensures a clear path to the courts when authorization has not been given.”

“We strongly reject any claim that the Code of Practice strikes a fair and workable balance or that the Template will deliver “sufficient” transparency about the majority of copyright works or other subject matter used to train GenAI models.”

Joint statement of 40 European and international creative and cultural sector organisations incl. CISAC, IFPI, European Writers' Council, STM.

“By federalizing a new likeness right and coupling it to notice-and-staydown requirements, aggressive statutory damages, and easy unmasking, it creates millions in new annual costs for digital services, both small and large, which favors incumbents and creates barriers to entry.”

“Equity is calling on the government to introduce a new system of automatic rights over your voice, face and body for all. These ‘personality rights’ would allow everyone to have control over their identity in the age of AI. They would provide a new layer of protection for performers against exploitation by AI models without your consent.”

Undated campaign page; docDate records access date (2026-07-21).

“These cases demonstrate that the fair use defense enables courts to consider all the fair use factors and apply them in the context of specific facts. MPA submits that this type of inquiry is the appropriate way to deal with the many types of potential infringements that may arise under the broad umbrella of “training” a generative AI system.”

Position is case-by-case fair-use analysis, opposing categorical treatment of training as fair use; also opposes new AI-specific copyright legislation.

“We believe that, in general, training generative AI constitutes fair use under current U.S. law. Using creative works to train generative AI fits with the long line of cases that has found that non-consumptive, technological uses of creative works in ways that are unrelated to the expressive content of those works are transformative fair uses”

“Retaining the UK’s gold standard copyright protections - and ensuring the law is enforceable and respected in the face of the challenges posed by GAI - will create incentives for GAI developers to enter into licence agreements with rights holders, ensuring a steady flow of quality, human-authored works for GAI training.”

“We are clear in our view that the training of AI models is a non-expressive use of open web content, which boosts economic growth, fosters scientific advancement, and enables the creation of valuable new works.”

“techUK believes that Option 2 – the broad TDM exception – would provide the strongest competitive advantage for the UK's AI sector and create significant opportunities for economic growth and will be the preferred option of many.”

“The federal government can both secure Americans’ freedom to learn from AI, and avoid forfeiting our AI lead to the PRC by preserving American AI models’ ability to learn from copyrighted material.”

“And the federal government should embrace policy frameworks that preserve access to data for fair learning, advance a risk-based approach to AI applications based on existing regulations, and preempt a chaotic patchwork of state-level rules on frontier AI development.”

Same sentence carries both the fair-learning and preemption asks; recorded once per ask.

“The AI Action Plan should encourage the continued development of free market licensing to support a symbiotic relationship between content creators, publishers, and AI developers.”

“In addition, we urge the administration to clarify that existing copyright law protects the ability of developers to train models. Getting this right is critical to ensuring American competitiveness in AI.”

“Specifically, the nation’s AI policy and AI Action Plan should respect intellectual property, support the development of voluntary licensing in free markets, and promote appropriate transparency and fair competition in the AI and technology sector.”

The filed RFI comments; doc-nma-actionplan-2025 is the accompanying press release.

“We believe a broad text and data mining exception, as described in Option 2, is the most effective way to achieve the Government’s objectives to unlock and leverage the benefits of AI in the UK.”

Submitted via IPO survey 25 Feb 2025; summary published 2 Apr 2025 at the Commons SITC's request.

“The report presents thoughtful and balanced analysis of fair use in the context of AI training, emphasizing that AI training is not categorically fair use and that whether a use qualifies as a fair use is a matter of context and degree.”

“In the report, the Copyright Office takes the sensible and correct approach that AI training is not categorically fair use and that whether a use qualifies as a fair use is a matter of context and degree.”

“The Secretary of State must now definitively rule out any new copyright exception, bringing an end to the uncertainty created by this prolonged process over the past year. This will send a clear message to AI developers that they must enter into licensing agreements with the UK’s media and creative copyright owners”