From December 2024 to February 2025 the UK Government ran a public consultation to seek views on how the government can ensure the UK’s legal framework for AI and copyright supports the UK creative industries and AI sector. The response to this consultation, and any subsequent legislative change, has not yet been confirmed. Guidance here is therefore related to the current (April 2025) legislative environment.
Generative AI (GenAI) tools and systems analyse text, data, and other copyrighted material for training purposes. They retain information, and create new derivative works in response to prompts that users create. Generally speaking, acknowledgement is not provided to the rights holders of the source material. Not only would this acknowledgement be practically impossible due to the amount of source material being used, there is also uncertainty as to whether processes involved in training GenAI tools can be considered ‘copying’ in the legal sense.
When creating original prompts to use in a GenAI tool, this prompt may qualify for copyright protection. This will be dependent on whether the choice of expression in the prompt is the user’s own original intellectual creation. Even in these cases, users should be aware that the GenAI tool may be granted additional rights for prompts and/or uploaded materials under their terms and conditions.
When uploading or copying and pasting any third-party copyright material into a GenAI tool, this material must be suitably licensed for such use. If not, you will need to obtain the rights owner’s permission. While it may be possible to make the case for uploading third-party content to a GenAI tool under certain copyright exceptions, such as for non-commercial research purposes, this argument has not yet been tested by UK copyright law.
The general UK legislation around copyright protection for “computer-generated” literary, dramatic, musical, or artistic works where this is no human author is under review by the UK government. Currently, therefore, ownership of any outputs created by GenAI tools should be checked in the tool’s terms and conditions. If the GenAI tool claims copyright in the outputs, it is important to understand the terms that they license the output to the user. In understanding these terms, you can better understand how you can and cannot use the output.
1. Always read the terms and conditions of the GenAI tool you are using.
2. Assume any content you are uploading to a GenAI tool is being stored as part of the that tool’s training database, unless you are told otherwise. This is especially important when using GenAI tools where training on user input is the default unless opt-out options are clearly stated.
3. Make sure you have permission to upload any third-party content before doing so. Works that are out of copyright and in the public domain do not have to be attributed, and can be freely used, subject to any contractual access constraints. Always check the material's licence, even when it appears to be in the public domain.
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