Industry 
On 23 June 2026, the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Data and Emerging Technologies (APGDET) held a parliamentary roundtable on artificial intelligence (AI) and copyright in the UK creative industries, organised by Policy Connect and chaired by Daniel Zeichner MP. The session brought together academic experts, creative-sector stakeholders and media representatives to discuss regulatory options and generate recommendations for government and regulators.
Contributors were clear that copyright regulation alone cannot address the challenges AI poses to the creative industries. They called for a wider policy framework, assessed sector by sector, given how differently AI affects music, photography, publishing, and journalism. On text and data mining, copyright exceptions, and AI transparency obligations, contributors said the UK should compare its position with EU developments, while identifying where a distinct UK approach is needed.
The discussion revolved around understanding the economic foundations for creative production and how it can be used in AI training. To this point, several contributors raised the case for assessing the legal, economic and practical feasibility of levies, collective licensing, and statutory remuneration models.
Wider harms, including disinformation, exploitative labour practices, and environmental costs, were identified as driving creatives’ reluctance to adopt AI. Some contributors argued that to encourage adoption would require offering a different vision of how these tools can be used.
The primary objective of the meeting was to develop possible solutions that can be taken forward in Parliament. Contributors discussed an AI assurance framework that could shift policy language from regulation to assurance. They also called for greater involvement from universities and public institutions in building UK-based, public-interest AI infrastructure, including open-source and open-weighted models and public-interest use of existing compute capacity. This should sit alongside joint government funding for research into provenance, watermarking, tracing, and remuneration technologies, to build public trust in these systems.
Contributors agreed that regulation needs to be proactive, collaborative, and adaptable to keep pace with AI development, questioning how far regulation can be future-proofed in such a fast-moving environment. They pointed to a need to anticipate new forms of creativity, new types of creators, and new legal questions around inputs, outputs, and ownership, as AI reshapes what has always been a collaborative, not solely individual, creative process.
For more information on the event, please contact lavanya.rangarajan@policyconnect.org.uk.
