On 16 July, the UK Government announced a new phase in its Plan for Change, convening an expert working group to explore practical, industry-led solutions for the use of copyright content in AI model training.

This follows the related consultation, which attracted over 11,000 responses—a clear indication of how serious a matter this is for stakeholders. Creative industries are calling for stronger protections and transparency, while AI developers press for clarity and freedom to innovate.

These roundtables will pull together voices from highly reputable and interested businesses: Sony Music, The Guardian, News Media Association, OpenAI, Meta and more. The goal? To find shared principles around licensing, transparency, and creator safeguards.

This is an opportunity, but also a test of whether these sectors can bridge fundamentally different commercial and legal priorities. The government is seeking common ground, but the real challenge will be whether both sides are prepared to concede ground, or if the government will have its hand forced to make the call on the balance to strike.

In terms of likely outputs from the discussions, these could be:

1. A legal framework for how AI training interacts with copyright be put on a statutory footing, setting out the obligations of the relevant parties; 
2. A shift toward soft-law measures - industry-led codes rather than top-down legislation; 
3. or a combination of both of these. 

If this is a topic that is impacting your business and you'd like to discuss, please leave a comment or send me a message directly. It would be great to discuss.