The Government has published its response to its consultation on Intellectual Property and Artificial Intelligence
Following this consultation, the Government intends to amend copyright law to make it easier to analyse material for the purposes of machine learning, research and innovation. This will promote the use of AI technology, and wider “data mining” techniques, for the public good.
Data mining is where software is used to analyse material for patterns, trends and other useful information. The Government intends that anyone with lawful access to material protected by copyright should be able to carry out this analysis without further permission from the copyright owner. Among other uses, data mining can be used when training AI systems. For example, machine-learning software which has been trained on large repositories of computer code is able to intelligently suggest new code to programmers.
This data mining provision will take advantage of the UK’s ability to set its own copyright laws now that we have left the EU and will put the UK’s copyright framework among the most AI and research friendly in the world. It will help make the UK a location of choice for data mining and AI development, supporting the Government’s ambition for the UK to be a global leader in AI innovation and research.
This initiative is targeted and will preserve wider copyright protection, including copyright owners’ ability to control who has access to their works. It will bring benefits to a wide range of stakeholders in the UK, including researchers, AI developers, and cultural heritage institutions.
The consultation also considered the extent to which inventions and creative works which are generated by AI should be protected by patents and copyright. The Government has decided that no changes will be made to the UK’s patent inventorship criteria or copyright computer generated works provisions at this time. It will keep AI technical development under review to help ensure that UK inventorship rules continue to support AI innovation and will seek to advance discussions internationally to support the UK’s economic interests.
Science & Innovation Minister George Freeman said:
David Prosser, Executive Director, Research Libraries UK, said:
Dame Wendy Hall, acting AI Council Chair said:
Notes to Editors