The UK government has been defeated for a third time in the House of Lords as it demands increased protection for copyright-protected works used by AI models.

In a vote on 19 May, The House of Lords voted for an amendment to the Data (Use and Access) Bill, adding a commitment to introduce transparency requirements, aiming to ensure copyright holders are able to see when their work has been used and by who. The amendment was supported by 287 votes to 118. 

Crossbench peer Baroness Beeban Kidron who is a former film director, proposed an amendment at the report stage, which was later voted down by MPs.

She reintroduced an amendment which the House of Lords voted in favour of on 12 May, but was then defeated by MPs.

Baroness Kidron tabeled revised clauses to the amendment last week which tried to address the main government objection which centred around lack of budget. The House of Lords voted in favour of them yesterday. 

Iain Connor, intellectual property partner at UK law firm Michelmores said: “It should not be difficult for the government to realise that the UK’s creative sector is a prize asset which should not be given away to the (US) tech sector.

“The Lords amendment is eminently sensible in striking a balance between rights holders and those wanting to exploit the works.

“This isn’t an earth shattering change to the law; just a tweak to ensure that the tech companies follow due process.”

The amendment would require businesses to publish detailed data about the materials used in all stages of AI model development – such as pre-training, training, fine-tuning, and retrieval-augmented generation. This data should be made accessible to copyright holders upon request.

On 10 May, hundreds of artists and organisations, including Elton John and Paul McCartney signed a letter to the UK prime minister urging the government to support the amendment and not to "give our work away" to AI.

The Independent quoted Kidron as saying that the government has been “turned by the sweet whisperings of Silicon Valley who have stolen – and continue to steal every day we take no action – the UK's extraordinary, beautiful and valuable creative output.”

Among the 287 to vote in favour of her amendment on Monday were 18 Labour peers, including former Labour deputy leader Tom Watson, now known as Lord Watson of Wyre Forest.

The UK government’s consultation on copyright and AI closed in February, eliciting over 11,000 responses. One of the core proposals of the consultation is to permit AI companies to use copyrighted material without permission, although rightsholders would still be able to “reserve their rights” by opting out of this regime and preventing the use of their content to train the models.

The bill will now be sent back to the House of Commons.

The UK government unveiled plans for the Data (Use and Access) Bill to Parliament in October last year and is a landmark piece of legislation aimed at modernising how data is used and accessed across public and private sectors.