The UK government spent most of 2025 proposing that AI companies could train on any creative work unless rights holders actively opted out. On 18 March 2026, they dropped it. "We have listened," said the UK Technology Secretary.
Here's what the opt-out proposal actually was: a system where your work was available by default, and you could reclaim it if you were organised enough, resourced enough, and technically literate enough to do so in a machine-readable format, on every individual piece of work, across every platform.
Major labels have legal teams and metadata infrastructure for that. An independent musician with a day job does not. The policy was described as protecting all creators equally. It would have protected the creators who least needed protecting, and not the ones who do.
A thousand musicians - Dua Lipa, Kate Bush, Paul McCartney, Thom Yorke, ABBA - released a silent album in protest. The tracklist spelled it out: "The British government must not legalise music theft to benefit AI companies." Of 10,000+ consultation respondents, only 3% supported the opt-out proposal. They may have won this round, but the fight isn't over. AI is moving faster than policy ever could. Beware the gap, and what emerges in the policy vacuum.
New blog on what the opt-out trap was, why it failed, and what the silence of a thousand musicians actually said.
👉 https://www.packmusic.au/blog/the-opt-out-trap
#AIcopyright #MusicRights #UKMusicPolicy #CreativeRights #IndependentArtists #AIethics #ThePackMusic #MusicIndustry #CopyrightLaw