The UK has launched a consultation which aims to give legal certainty to the creative industries and AI developers on how copyright protected material can be used to train AI models.

As part of the consultation, the government is proposing an exception to copyright law for companies carrying out AI training for commercial purposes while allowing rights holders to reserve their rights.

The government is also suggesting new requirements for AI model developers to be more transparent about their model training datasets and how they are obtained. Under these rules, AI developers could be expected to provide info about what content they have used to train their models.

The move comes amidst ongoing uncertainty about how UK copyright legislation applies to AI, which the government says is “holding back both sectors”.

A lack of clarity has made it difficult for creators or control or seek payment for the use of their content, while creating legal risks for AI firms.

The consultation is set to examine how creators can license and be remunerated for the use of their material and how "wide access" to high-quality data for AI developers can be strengthened to facilitate innovation across the UK AI sector.

The consultation follows previous attempts to agree a voluntary AI copyright code of practice which proved unsuccessful under the Conservative government.

"It’s clear that our current AI and copyright framework does not support either our creative industries or our AI sectors to compete on the global stage," said Peter Kyle, technology secretary. "That is why we are setting out a balanced package of proposals to address uncertainty about how copyright law applies to AI so we can drive continued growth in the AI sector and creative industries, which will help deliver on our mission of the highest sustained growth in the G7 as part of our Plan for Change."

Chair of the House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee Baroness Stowell said that the Committee's recent findings on the impact of AI on news providers revealed a "real issue" with tech companies using copyrighted material to train their models without any credit or revenue finding its way back to content creators.

"The Government is right to try and make progress on this issue and must do so in a way that aligns incentives, and empowers content creators and tech firms to strike mutually beneficial deals," commented Stowell. “The EU’s model is the wrong approach.

"f this consultation leads to an ‘opt-out’ model, it is vital publishers and other copyright holders have the necessary information to understand how and where their data is being used and are supported by enhanced enforcement mechanisms so they can enforce their copyright and block AI web crawlers should they choose to do so. It is not fair to expect rights holders alone to enforce their copyright in an often-mismatched legal battle against the bottomless pockets of the tech giants.”

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