Copyright and Artificial Intelligence: the end of copyright for computer-generated works

For nearly four decades, the UK’s Copyright, Designs and Patents Act (CDPA) has granted copyright protection to "computer-generated works" produced in circumstances where there is no human author. For literary, dramatic, musical, or artistic works, the protection vests in whoever made "the arrangements necessary for the creation of the work" and was at the time heralded as the first copyright legislation in the world seeking to deal with Artificial Intelligence. However, it is rare to locate comparable provisions in other jurisdictions and now the March 2026 Report on Copyright and Artificial Intelligence proposes to remove it.

Why the protection is being withdrawn 

In 1988, when the CDPA was enacted, computer-generated content was expensive to produce and granting copyright protection to the outputs could be seen as a way of protecting that investment.

Now, that logic has been overtaken with users of generative AI being able to produce text, images, and code with minimal effort.

Internationally, where there is no human author, it has become the settled position almost everywhere that there is no copyright. The US has taken a step further and prevented the registration of any works with more than a minimal amount of content generated by Artificial Intelligence.

A similar shift has already taken place in the neighbouring area of UK patent law. In the Thaler case, the UK Supreme Court has confirmed that only a human can be named as an inventor, so an AI system cannot itself hold that role, and owning the machine that produced an invention does not, on its own, give the owner the right to a patent. Read alongside the proposed copyright reform, the broader picture is consistent. Where there is no meaningful human contribution, UK intellectual property law is increasingly reluctant to grant protection to the output, whether the question is one of authorship or of inventorship.

AI-assisted works: what remains protected 

The March 2026 Report draws a distinction between "wholly AI-generated" and "AI-assisted" works.

Wholly AI-generated works in the categories of text and image-based content, produced by an AI system with no meaningful human creative contribution, would lose copyright protection under the proposed reform. Sound recordings, video and broadcasts would continue to benefit under separate entrepreneurial rights established under the CDPA.

AI-assisted text and image-based works, by contrast, would remain protected under standard copyright principles. Where a human exercises genuine creative choice using AI as a tool to realise their own creative vision, the output qualifies for protection in the ordinary way. An example given by the Government was the use of a generative fill tool to edit a photograph. Here the originality lies in the underlying photograph and the human choices made in its editing.

The Government has shifted to reconcile the UK’s approach to authorless works in line with the international status quo. Those who use AI in the creative process will still benefit from copyright protections and the proposed reform will ensure that copyright does not extend protections to works with minimal to no human creative input.

Although sensible in principle, this matters for agentic AI processes generating copy, code or designs as, without human input, these assets appear unlikely to meet the minimum criteria to attract copyright.