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18 March 2026
Responding to the statement made today on AI and copyright by the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, Liz Kendall MP, News Media Association chief executive, Owen Meredith, has said:
“We are pleased that the government has listened to concerns and taken the unworkable opt-out copyright exception off the table, recognising that giving away our goldmine of creative content is not the way to drive UK growth. By the same logic, the government must now swiftly dismiss other exceptions that could be even more harmful, particularly an exception for ‘science and research’ or ‘commercial research’.
“AI firms should now focus on meaningful engagement with news publishers to secure licenses to access their rich breadth of content, and the government must make clear that this is what they expect. Scaling a dynamic licensing market will support the government’s ambition for the UK to have the fastest AI adoption in the G7, with the presence of high-quality news content being crucial to building trust in AI models”.