Prime Minister Andy Burnham has convened the Creative Industries AI Summit, a one-day event to be held this Friday in Manchester, forming part of the Beyond the Music conference and festival. The intention of the AI Summit is to bring together rightsholders, regulators, platforms and the AI labs to align on a common approach to the use of copyright protected works by AI model developers and deployers. The Summit is scheduled to culminate in the unveiling of the 'Manchester Principles', a crowd-shared founding document elaborating a set of minimum conditions under which human creative work may be used to train generative AI models. Will we see any policy announcements at the Summit from Ian Murray, the Minister for Creative Industries, and might the Manchester Principles act as the foundation for the Burnham government's approach to copyright and AI?
What are the Manchester Principles?
The Manchester Principles are currently a working draft document, intended as "a framework for licensing, provenance, attribution and enforcement in the age of synthetic content". The Principles are founded on the argument that AI training should be founded on permission from rightsholders, attribution of training content and proportionate remedies where "compliance is cheaper than breach". The intention is that the Principles will be unveiled at the close of the AI Summit, drawing upon the key themes addressed in the round-stage conference sessions earlier in the day, and that they will then be shared with attendees to be further refined and implemented.
What is the current government policy on copyright and AI in the UK?
As we have discussed previously, the (Starmer) UK Government carried out a Copyright and AI consultation in December 2024 in an effort to resolve the ongoing tension between the creative industries and AI developers. In its response to that consultation at the start of this year, the Government released a Report which concluded that various stages of the development and deployment of AI models are likely to infringe copyright law if carried out in the UK without permission of copyright owners. In practice however the major AI developers tend to carry out their AI training in other jurisdictions which may have more permissive copyright regimes, and it currently remains uncertain whether importing an AI model into the UK where it was trained abroad infringes copyright. The legality of the importation of AI models trained abroad was considered in the High Court in the Getty Images v Stability AI litigation, but that aspect of the High Court decision has been subject to appeal, and we do not expect a decision from the Court of Appeal until 2027.
Since becoming PM in July, Andy Burnham has yet to clearly set out his Government's policy on copyright and AI. The delay in announcing policy on copyright and AI may in part may be due to a reshuffle of the Ministers with responsibility for the issue – in July Burnham appointed the Rt Hon Kanishka Narayan MP as Minister for Artificial Intelligence, but it was not until late August that Chris McDonald MP was confirmed as the new Minister with responsibility for Intellectual Property. Burnham has however been described by the General Secretary of the Musicians' Union as someone who "understands the issues with generative AI" in the music sector; and in his previous role as Mayor of Greater Manchester was supportive of the creative industries, stating "Greater Manchester has always been willing to take a stand on the issues that matter – standing up for the people behind the music, making sure they are recognised, rewarded and able to build sustainable careers".
For the moment it also remains uncertain whether the Government will go ahead with the planned consultation on the regulation of digital replicas, which had been expected over the Summer. The issue however remains on the legislative radar, with a Private Members Bill on Digital Twins which was introduced to the House of Commons for a first reading in September and is scheduled for second reading in November. An EU consultation has also just commenced, considering both the relationship between copyright and generative AI and on AI-generated imitation of performers.
What will happen at the Manchester AI Summit?
The Prime Minister's role as convenor of the Creative Industries AI Summit and the participation of the Minister for Creative Industries and the Deputy Director of AI & Society at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology suggests that the Burnham Government may now be closer to announcing its policy approach to the relationship between copyright and AI. Given the content of the draft Manchester Principles and their centrality to the Summit, it seems unlikely that a Burnham Labour Government would re-adopt the previously preferred Starmer government option of a new 'opt out' copyright exception, that would allow AI companies to use copyright-protected works for AI training purposes, provided the rightsholder had not "reserved their rights". Instead, we might expect a greater focus on transparency on AI training data, and proposals to support independent and smaller creative organisations in licensing their content either through collective licensing or supports for direct negotiations between rightsholders and AI firms.
The Lewis Silkin team will be at the Beyond the Music Conference and at the Creative Industries AI Summit. Reach out to us if you would like meet at the event.
