24.02.2025: MPs from across the political spectrum have urged Government to change its plans to weaken copyright protections for creators. 

During a House of Commons debate on AI and copyright, MPs from Labour, Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, SNP, and Plaid Cymru spoke out on the subject, with many calling for the Government to drastically rethink its approach. 

The Government is proposing an EU-style opt-out system, referred to as a rights reservation mechanism. However, the music industry believes that such a measure would offer insufficient protection for artists, songwriters, labels, publishers, producers, sound engineers, and the sector as a whole. This is primarily due to the fact any opt-out process is both confusing and difficult to navigate, as creators would be required to opt-out from each and every AI company’s individual policy.

Earlier this month, a raft of MPs of all stripes joined the likes of Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Elton John, and UK Music Chief Executive Tom Kiehl in insisting that the Government must rethink its plans in order to prevent AI firms from stealing the work of our creators and dealing a devastating blow to our £7.6 billion industry – a sector that enjoys 13% year-on-year growth, generates exports of £4.6 billion, and employs 216,000 people. Here’s what they had to say.  

Labour MP Anneliese Midgley: “Our musicians will once again lose out if AI copyright laws are not handled correctly. Big tech companies should not be able to generate and profit from music without permission or payment. How can we justify taking money away from British musicians and handing it to tech firms for free? That does not support growth; it undermines it. In reality, many household names – artists whose music we all know, who have had top 10 hits and whose posters once adorned our walls – are struggling. New musicians can barely get a foot in the door and are often not paid for years. Songs are played more than ever, yet songwriters see less of the money. Someone is getting paid, but not the people who create the music.  

“Unless they are at the very top, making a good living as a musician in this country is becoming nearly impossible. Even those who can sell out venues of a couple of thousand people across our towns and cities are barely scraping by. The balance is completely off, but we, in this place, have the power to help to change that. Unlike our European counterparts, in this country we have failed to introduce proper protections for creators’ pay over the past decade.  

“As the party of labour, with a commitment to make work pay, this Government should ensure that artists, songwriters and musicians are fairly paid for their work and protected from exploitation by faceless tech companies. AI can be a powerful tool, transforming industries like healthcare and science by reducing admin burdens and freeing up skilled professionals. But AI that tokenises the toil of artists and spits out soulless imitations does not support human creativity or make it more productive. No one has ever loved a song because of how efficiently it was written.

“As James Oppenheim wrote in his 1911 poem: Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes; Hearts starve as well as bodies; give us bread, but give us roses. If work is our bread, then music is our roses.”

APPG Co-Chair and SNP MP Pete Wishart: “To develop and thrive, our artists need the best possible conditions and political environment, and we have delivered that over the decades. That is why we lead the world when it comes to our contribution to the creative industries, and why we make such massive gross value added in every single sector in which we are predominant.  

“Our leading artists give us a soft power that is the envy of the world, and we must not do anything that threatens our ability to retain it. We have a gold standard IP rights framework enshrined in UK law. We have a copyright regime that protects our artists, and ensures that their wonderful works are properly recognised and that they are remunerated for the products of their imagination.”

He continued: “There is an idea that somehow our copyright laws are broken. They are not broken at all; our copyright laws work perfectly well. The only people who have an issue with our copyright laws are those running the AI tech giants, who find that such laws get in the way of what they want to do and achieve. Their intention and ambition is to ingest our creative heritage, and to scrape the world for the last bit of human imagination and creative content. That is what has created difficulties and confusion about our copyright regime. There is nothing wrong with our laws. They are really good and the envy of so many, and they have served us well.”

Liberal Democrat Science and Technology spokesperson Victoria Collins: “We have listened to the evidence and we have said what our view is, which is that we do not support the opt out. Our creatives are one of the UK’s greatest exports, which is why we support them. Our world leaders in this area should never be asked to give up their existing rights.”

Plaid Cymru MP Ann Davies: “Wales’s creative industry is a cornerstone of our culture and economy. It generated £3.8 billion in the last financial year—5.3% of our GDP—and much of that success relies on strong copyright protections. Creatives must be paid when their work is used, including for AI training. Too often creative data is being scraped without permission, undermining livelihoods.”

Science and Technology Secretary Peter Kyle: “I pay tribute to those in the creative arts sector who are in the house today. I know that, for people who engage in that kind of activity it is not just a job, it is a passion that comes straight from the heart.  They are emotionally connected in a profound way to the work that they create, which is a credit not just to them as individuals but to our entire country. I can assure them that I have no intention at all of standing in the way of respect for their work.” 

Shadow Science and Technology Minister and Conservative MP Dr Ben Spencer: “We cannot hold back the tide of change that AI has brought with it, nor can we put the genie back in the bottle, but we must do everything in our power to protect and promote our creative industries so that they can continue to thrive and grow, as they did with the support put in place by the previous Government during the pandemic.”

You can read Sir Paul McCartney and Tom Kiehl’s view on the matter here in a BBC feature with Laura Keunssberg, while Tom’s exclusive Music Week op-ed on why Government must rethink its approach can be found here.  

UK Music has also provided an All You Need To Know guide to the Government’s AI proposals and what they could mean for the music industry here.