Growth. This is now the government’s core mission – its ‘north star’ – and in the name of growth many of its other promises are secondary. This urgency for growth has given birth to a headlong rush to embrace technology, particularly AI, on any terms. This is largely based on ‘unsubstantiated’ numbers – optimistic at best, likely plain wrong – that suggest AI will be the saviour in the government’s battle to balance the books.

Into this uncertain future the government launched its consultation on copyright, with its ’preferred option three’, which gives a sweeping new exception to copyright law to AI companies, and with it irrevocable damage to the creative industries, and the growth it seeks.
Ministers have been keen to emphasise that this preferred option includes transparency and an opt-out system for creatives – while also admitting that there are no protocols for either the transparency nor the opt-out, and they haven’t a clue how an individual creator would be able to police the thousands, maybe millions, of AI products and services based on their IP.
I can think of no government policy in any other sector that makes a citizen or business proactively opt out of the market – a corner shop from which you can steal, unless they post a message saying you must not. There is no dictate from government that suggests that software licences, travel tickets or drugs must be given away for free unless you withdraw them from the marketplace.

Many people in the past few days have asked: why? Young people who see their opportunity of a creative life disappearing; idols such as Elton John and Paul McCartney; artists and musicians who are, as one said: “One copyright cheque away from broke." It is a question that is hard to answer with anything better than the conclusion that the theft of copyright is now at a scale so enormous that government is lazily, and foolishly, legalising the crime rather than protecting the victims.

Silicon Valley meanwhile plays a different game, with many openly preferring option two. Which is an even more breathtaking ploy: to get rid of copyright and transparency altogether. The hypocrisy that protects their IP when stealing from others was brilliantly exposed by Sam Altman of OpenAI this week, when he accused the inventor of the new vastly cheaper AI model DeepSeek of stealing OpenAI’s IP to build its model.

AI cannot offer growth if it appropriates our assets and then forces us to rent back what it makes – the government has got it wrong, and I encourage all creators to tell them so

The role of creativity is multifaceted: building culture, sharing knowledge, supporting soft power, driving tourism, creating jobs and bringing sheer joy, offering riches far beyond its massive contribution to GDP. All of those have been excluded from the government’s equation, so it is simply eye-watering that on the government’s sole measure of growth, this is a policy that fails catastrophically.

Officials admit there is no economic impact assessment, only a few bullet points, that include a ‘fall in revenue’ and ‘employment’ impacts, and the problem of collecting from an opt-out system that is widely assumed to be unworkable.

They admit there is no evidence that putting the UK’s £126bn creative industries at risk will secure the AI investment the government craves. Trump and the tech titans have been utterly clear – America First – and yet the government is failing to protect a UK sector that excels in favour of one that will earn a fraction of that at best.

Nor can ministers say what part of that fraction will accrue outside the UK, even as the job losses and loss of income accrue to the UK. It is not economically or strategically literate.

In the House of Lords last week, peers voted for amendments in my name that would retain and enhance our gold standard copyright framework, and ensure it is applied to any model that wants to do business in the UK. These provisions would make the law enforceable by giving creators transparency on how AI firms use their content, and they have regulatory bite behind them, with a regulator given the power to fine and correct illegal behaviour.

What made the success of the amendments truly remarkable is that they were voted for despite the government ordering Labour peers to vote against them, and the Conservatives ordering their benches to sit on their hands. Yet Labour and Tory colleagues were courageous and ignored these orders, demonstrating in public for the first time the dissent that has been growing for weeks in Parliament over the government’s proposal to deliberately undercut the property rights of the creative community.

In recent meetings I have had with AI companies, not one has said that the amendments are unworkable. In fact, leaving ownership with creators solves many problems about who has responsibility over the content in our communication networks, which will soon be supercharged by AI. Being clear about ownership is to be clear about provenance, so those who manipulate or steal can be identified. Enhancing copyright is to vote for growth; supporting the property rights of creatives is to vote for a safer and more responsible information ecosystem. Unless we act, the government will soon move ahead and sanction the large-scale appropriation of creative property rights.  

Next week, MPs will have their first opportunity to speak and we must hope that they too have the courage to support the creative industries. AI cannot offer growth if it appropriates our assets and then forces us to rent back what it makes – the government has got it wrong, and I encourage all creators to tell it so.