On Friday 6 March 2026, the Lords Committee heard the final say from AI developers on copyright issues in the growing AI sector, with those answers then being fed back to government ministers as they prepare to deal with the growing issue of widespread copyright infringement by AI.
Expert witnesses Roxanne Carter, head of AI, copyright & media at Google, and Guy Gadney, owner of the generative AI firm Charismatic.ai, which focuses on producing educational media for children, both represented the interests of AI stakeholders when questioned by Baroness Keeley and the other members of the committee. Discussions involved the remuneration of copyright owners when their works are used in training AI, with AI provider Anthropic in recent hot water over Claude’s outputs copying the whole or a substantial part of copyright works, and how AI companies generate revenue for the UK’s economy.
The second stage of the meeting involved the panel of government ministers, which included Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, Liz Kendall, and Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Lisa Nandy, considering whether copyright law needs to be modernised in line with the rise of AI. The issues at hand included striking a balance between the UK’s long-standing creative industry and encouraging growth in the British technology sector, the rise of malicious AI usage to generate deep-fakes of individuals without consent, and how the government plans to “carefully, but quickly and definitely” implement measures that help both creatives and AI companies.
With the final consultation having concluded, it remains to be seen how the government will broach the issue of AI and copyright, with stakeholders from both sides continuing to weigh in. One of the core issues the Committee noted in the debate stems from the payment terms for AI companies to train their models using copyright works.
If you have any questions on the above, or if you need any advice or support in respect of your own Intellectual Property, please do not hesitate to contact the team at McDaniels Law on 0191 281 4000 or legal@mcdanielslaw.com.
