Independent journalism is an essential pillar in our democratic society – it debunks fake news, holds power to account, and informs and engages the public. News media publishers invest a considerable amount of time, money, and resources in creating high-quality journalistic content that adheres to journalistic standards and ethics.
However, with the rapid advancement of AI, there are growing concerns over copyright issues. Generative AI can easily replicate, change, and distribute journalistic content, leading to potential copyright infringements, which can be detrimental to publishers who invest heavily in creating original content. There are also fears that AI technology could accelerate the spread of misinformation and disinformation – a growing problem in today’s society.
AI is often marketed as “generative” but this is a misnomer. In reality, it is a tool that extracts large amounts of information, typically from news media, without a commercial license, and then regurgitates that information in response to a query. Users should also be informed that AI-powered tools are not capable of producing journalism and the information they provide is based on the best possible guess from crawled data.
Current situation
“We think there’s enormous potential in AI. We want to unlock the potential, as do the creative industries… But copyright law in this country is based on one very fundamental principle, which is that people should own their own work. Now we’re a Labour government, and that is a fundamental principle and a hill on which we will die.”
Lisa Nandy, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport in an interview with The House
The current IP regime generally strikes the right balance in terms of protecting the rights of content creators and the rights of consumers or users. Any significant new exceptions could be highly damaging to the news media industry.
Recent independent analysis commissioned by the News Media Association, the Publishers Association and Publishers’ Licensing Services has also dismantled claims that weakening copyright would drive economic growth. The Oliver & Ohlbaum review found no evidence that introducing a broad copyright exception for AI training would deliver net benefits for the UK economy, noting instead that a licensing market for AI training data is already established and capable of scaling. Protecting copyright certainty is therefore not a barrier to innovation but a prerequisite for sustainable growth.
The rapid advancement of AI in recent years has caused serious concern over the role it will play in spreading dis- and misinformation online and beyond. Journalism will play as vital a role as ever in combatting the dangers AI poses to our society. Journalists, unlike AI, work under an editorial code and are committed to upholding the truth and public interest.
In February 2025, the UK’s creative industries – along with the news media industry – launched the Make it Fair campaign to raise public awareness of the threat posed by government proposals to weaken copyright laws and allow AI companies to use creative content without permission or payment. As the government’s consultation closed, national and regional news brands united to deliver a powerful message across print and digital platforms, urging the public to support creators by contacting their MPs.
The campaign highlights how generative AI models often scrape and repurpose content – whether journalism, music, writing or art – without compensating the individuals and businesses behind it. With the creative industries contributing over £120 billion annually to the UK economy, the campaign warns that weakening copyright would be devastating for jobs, innovation, and culture. Instead, it calls for the government to strengthen transparency and uphold existing copyright protections to ensure AI development is fair, responsible, and sustainable for all.
The campaign continues to see support from Parliamentarians across both Houses and from high-profile figures from across the creative industries, such as Dua Lipa, Sir Elton John and Kate Mosse.
An overwhelming 95 per cent of respondents to the government’s consultation agreed that copyright works must be licensed for AI training, underlining strong cross‑sector consensus that the use of creative content by generative AI should be subject to permission and payment, not new exemptions.
What action do we want to see?
The government must first provide unambiguous support for the UK’s world-leading copyright regime. Any future policy proposals should be built on the principle that copyright works cannot be used without permission or fair remuneration.
Rightsholders of intellectual property should be the ones deciding who may use their content, and how. The NMA is a signatory to the Global Principles for AI, which set out how developers should work with rights holders in news media.
The News Media Association works to safeguard the intellectual property rights of its member publishers. This includes working closely with partners such as the Creative Rights in AI Coalition, the Alliance for Intellectual Property and the Publishers’ Content Forum to protect publisher copyright and intellectual property and to ensure the industry’s voice is clearly heard.
Introducing any new copyright exceptions could be devastating for the creative sectors, creating further uncertainty in the marketplace, and allowing generative AI companies to continue to evade their existing obligations. News publishers must retain control over how and when their content is used, alongside fair compensation where that content is deployed in AI systems.
Rather than pursuing unworkable copyright exceptions, the government should commit fully to the existing copyright framework and send an unequivocal signal that licensing is the default, as well as working to implement transparency requirements so creators can see how, where and when their content is being used. A fully scaled licensing market is the best way to ensure that both creative industries and AI developers can innovate, invest and grow together.
This approach has also been strongly endorsed by Parliament. In March 2026, the House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee concluded that the government should decisively rule out any copyright exception for AI training and instead support a licensing‑first model, warning that prolonged policy uncertainty has actively chilled the UK licensing market. The Committee was clear that protecting copyright, strengthening transparency and enabling enforcement are essential to unlocking growth in UK intellectual property.
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