The Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA), has announced that it is developing a Generative AI Training Licence.

The CLA promises that the licence will offer “a streamlined approach to licensing text-based published content for training Generative AI models” which will both ensure proper remuneration for publishers and authors, as well as legal certainty for AI developers.

Publishers’ Licensing Services (PLS), with whom, in addition to the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS), the CLA will develop the licence, has stated that the plans to introduce a licence demonstrates that the Government’s current preferred approach to change copyright law and introduce a broader text and data mining exception (on which we have commented here) is “neither necessary nor desirable”. Instead, it argues that the new training licence “builds upon the collective licences being developed and rolled out by the CLA for commercial text and data mining”, including changes to its licences from 1 May to allow organisations to use licensed works as prompts in generative AI systems (on which, see here).

The training licence is intended to be available in the third quarter of this year.

Commenting on the plans for the licence, Mat Pfleger, CEO of the CLA said, “training AI models on copyrighted content requires permission and compensation. CLA’s collective licence will further demonstrate that licensing is the answer and can provide a market-based solution that is efficient and effective. Our goal is to provide a clear, legal pathway for access to quality content. One that empowers innovators to develop transformative Generative AI technologies whilst respecting copyright and compensating rightsholders and creators where their works are used”.