The government has announced it will come up with a new code of practice to replace an earlier approach that faced opposition from the creative sectors.
By Deborah Kirk and Brett Shandler
Latham previously reported on the UK government’s proposal to introduce a new copyright and database exception that allows text and data mining (TDM) for any purpose, provided that the party employing TDM obtains lawful access to the material (June 2022 TDM Proposal). The UK government has now announced that it is abandoning this proposal, and intends to consult with AI firms and rightholders to produce a code of practice to support AI firms to access copyrighted work as an input to their models, whilst ensuring protections on generated output to support rightholders. It has foreshadowed that this code of practice, due by summer 2023, may be followed up with legislation if it is not adopted or agreement is not reached.
In September 2016, the European Commission announced its proposal on “the modernisation of copyright” designed to bring “clearer rules for all online players”. Six years later, in September 2022, and following a national transposition deadline of 7 June 2021, the EU Directive on copyright and related rights in the Digital Single Market 2019/790 (the Directive) is not yet fully implemented across all EU Member States.