From 1 December 2024 to 20 February, 2025, Convocation Research + Design (CoRD Labs) was commissioned by collective rights management organisations, DACS and PICSEL, to create a research report in response to the government’s consultation, to surface from stakeholders across the creative sectors and policy experts what considerations, frameworks, and policy should inform the consultation in regards to rights reservations, transparency and labelling of data.

For this project, CoRD Labs conducted ecosystem mapping and analysis on generative AI consumer facing products; auditing and analysing current opt-out systems in regards to AI and/or UK/EU regulation (such as GDPR); designed and facilitated two workshops to gather expert feedback and insights. Workshop One was in person on 30 January, 2025 with 18 participants at DACS office in London, and the second workshop was held online on 14 February, 2025 with 8 participants. Workshop participants included legal experts, educators, curators, funders, artists, policy experts, data scientists, and technologists. Participants included artists, members of DACS and PICSEL, British Council, the Open Data Institute, Tate Modern, National Portrait Gallery, the Serpentine Galleries’ Art and Technology team, Spawning, and others. The workshop’s structures, surveys, and activities were designed around the following questions from the Government consultation.

The report concludes that:

1. Artists are not “anti- AI”, and many are keen to find ways to collaborate or contribute to datasets, while also being paid.
2. Artists, lawyers, and copyright holders would like to see government create better ways to govern and manage data.
3. AI and creative industries can both flourish in the UK if the right policies are followed. Destabilising the law would have a negative downstream impact on everyone from artists to museums to visitors.
4. Creating a better symbiosis does not require sweeping copyright law changes: there’s enough flexibility in the law to bring about control and pay.
5. The lack of transparency measures is a barrier to creator-AI collaboration and fair payment. Responsible accessing and use of data, underpinned by licensing, is key to overcoming this barrier.