UKIPO-AI-IP-PAIL-2025

UKIPO / DBT – AI & IP Ownership Consultation (October 2025 Update)

This brief covers the UK Government’s Copyright and Artificial Intelligence consultation (run by UKIPO with DBT). The consultation ran from 17/12/2024 to 25/02/2025 and is currently marked as “analysing feedback”. It explores how UK copyright should apply to AI development, including text-and-data mining (TDM), training data, and the status of AI-generated outputs.

Primary sources (live links)

• Gov.uk – Consultation landing page
• Gov.uk – Consultation text (HTML)
• ICO – Response to the consultation (18/03/2025)
• Finnegan analysis (20/06/2025)
• Ropes & Gray viewpoint (18/03/2025)
• Jones Day note (Jan 2025)

What’s on the table

• Clarifying/expanding the TDM exception (including for commercial AI training) with rights-holder reservation (opt-out) mechanisms.
• Enhancing transparency around training datasets and provenance.
• Approaches to authorship/ownership where AI contributes to a work, including treatment of non-human generated outputs.
• Exploring licensing frameworks and collective management for high-value content sectors.

Signals & commentary (Oct 2025)

• Government outcome is pending; page remains “analysing feedback”.
• Regulators (ICO) emphasise lawful basis and transparency for scraping/TDM of personal data.
• Creative-sector stakeholders continue to press for enforceable opt-out and robust transparency duties.

Recommended actions for PAIL® clients

1. Creators/rights-holders: implement machine-readable “no-TDM/no-AI-training” signals and reserve rights in ToS/licences.
2. AI developers: maintain training-data inventories and DPIAs; document lawful bases and opt-out honouring.
3. Brand/content owners: audit contracts for TDM/AI clauses; consider collective licensing options for valuable catalogues.
4. All: be ready to evidence provenance and permissions for model training and dataset curation.