Developments in the Realm of AI and Its Relationship with the Creative Sector

European Cultural Policy and the Challenges of Digital Transformation

There have been significant developments within the realm of cultural policy, in particular in the last couple of years. These have had implications across Europe, and especially in the field of technological development. One key area of consideration is artificial intelligence – more commonly referred to as AI. There have been rapid developments, and with that discussions and policy guidelines, surrounding this in the context of cultural policy. This piece shall outline some of the developments in the realm of AI and its relationship with the creative sector, focusing on challenges, policy, and thoughts on the way forward. It will examine these issues in two separate geopolitical contexts – the European Union and the United Kingdom.

Figure 1: Horsch, Jonas. (2022). European Parliament in Strasbourg, France. https://www.pexels.com/photo/european-parliament-in-strasbourg-france-11682403/

The article will therefore outline the increasing focus in particular on the use of AI in the creative industries, outlining policy developments in this area in both the European Union and the United Kingdom, including attempts to address some of the concerns surrounding AI and the efforts of the creative sector to raise awareness of these issues and of governmental bodies to address them.

The European Union and AI

The European Union has developed policies oriented towards AI. The Steering Committee for Culture Heritage and Landscape (CDCPP) (2024; KEA European Affairs, 2025c) has developed policies towards technological developments, such as AI, to complement the standards of the Council of Europe surrounding Culture, Creativity, and Cultural Heritage. These are designed as guidelines to offer relevant policy measures to support member states of the European Union in navigating the intersection of AI and cultural heritage, and at the same time safeguarding human rights and the rule of law, and are designed to recognise both the opportunities and the concerns posed by AI in the cultural sector about copyright, authorship and data ethics (KEA European Affairs, 2025c). The policy guidelines are designed with four policy objectives:

“1. Enhance equal access to AI systems”

“2. Build trust in the use of AI”

“3. Ensure safe, secure and trustworthy use of AI”

“4. Encourage interdisciplinary and international co-operation”

(Steering Committee for Culture Heritage and Landscape, 2024).

Figure 2: Winstead, Tara. (2021). Robot Pointing on a Wall. https://www.pexels.com/photo/robot-pointing-on-a-wall-8386440/

The context of this at the Final Declaration of the Council of Europe Conference of Ministers of Culture (held in Strasbourg, 2022), with the Ministers underling how digital transformation implied cultural transformation, and how artificial intelligence and developments within this accelerated change (Steering Committee for Culture Heritage and Landscape (CDCPP), 2024). In this context, there was a belief that culture, creativity, and heritage needed to be part of these dialogues surrounding digital transformation (Steering Committee for Culture Heritage and Landscape (CDCPP), 2024). As such, the CDCPP recognised the importance of developing guidelines surrounding this and set up a working group on Artificial Intelligence and Culture and Cultural Heritage with experts and policy representatives as part of this (Steering Committee for Culture Heritage and Landscape (CDCPP), 2024). The CDCPP sees its work surrounding these guidelines in conjunction with that of the Council of Europe on Artificial Intelligence, especially the Committee on Artificial Intelligence (Steering Committee for Culture Heritage and Landscape (CDCPP), 2024). This led to the Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law, the first ever international legally binding treaty in this field (Steering Committee for Culture Heritage and Landscape (CDCPP), 2024). This was adopted in May 2024 and opened for signature in Vilnius on 5th September 2024 (Steering Committee for Culture Heritage and Landscape (CDCPP),2024).

Figure 3: Pixabay. (2013). Lighted Building Near Body of Water. https://www.pexels.com/photo/lighted-building-near-body-of-water-434673/

Paris hosted the 18th session of the Intergovernmental Committee of the 2005 UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions from 10th to 14th February, 2025, bringing together all States Parties in the discussion of developments in cultural policy with a particular focus on the digital environment (KEA European Affairs, 2025b). As part of the session, the International Federation of Coalitions for Cultural Diversity (IFCCD) organized a side event on 12 February titled ‘Promoting our Cultures in the Digital Age.’ The event was attended by UNESCO Deputy Director-General Ernesto Ottone, focused on the recommendations put forward by the UNESCO expert group on the diversity of cultural expressions in the digital environment (KEA European Affairs, 2025b). A key proposal was the development of an additional protocol to the 2005 Convention, aimed at incorporating specific provisions addressing digital technology and artificial intelligence (KEA European Affairs, 2025b). Despite these developments, concerns nonetheless remain. A coalition of organisations from across the cultural and creative industries in the EU wrote a letter to Henna Virkkunen, the Executive Vice-President of the European Commission for Technological Sovereignty, Security and Democracy, expressing concerns about the Second Draft of the General-purpose AI Code of Practice under the EU AI Act and its impact on the cultural creators of Europe (KEA European Affairs, 2025a; Legrand, 2025). This General-purpose AI Code of Practice acts as a framework for providers of general-purpose AI models (KEA European Affairs, 2025a). The letter, including signatories from industry groups such as the European Audiovisual Production Association (CEPI), European Publishers Council (EPC), Federation of European Publishers (FEP), and the International Federation of Film Producers’ Associations (FIAPF), expressed fears that the second draft did not align with the objectives of the EU AI Act and that this could potentially undermine the protection and development of the creative sector, and called for major revisions to the Code (KEA Consulting, 2025a). This strong letter of concern expresses the fears within the sector about how AI could affect the creative sector.

The United Kingdom and AI

The issue of AI in the creative world is contentious and there has been discussion and debate on this not only in the context of the European Union, but on a national level outside of the EU. In the UK, for example, a consultation on AI was launched by the British Government.

The consultation, which ran from 17th December 2024 to 25th February 2025, sought views on proposals regarding AI and copyright to deliver against the objectives of the Government (Intellectual Property Office, Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, et al., 2024). These objectives focused on boosting trust and transparency between sectors, ensuring that the developers of AI provide greater clarity to rights holders about using their material, enhancing the control of rights holders over whether their works are used in training AI models or not, and ensuring that the developers of AI have access to high-quality material to train leading AI models in the UK and support innovation across the AI sector in the UK (Intellectual Property Office, Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, et al., 2024).

Figure 4: Vallone, Flavio. (2024). View of the Westminster Bridge, London, UK. https://www.pexels.com/photo/westmister-and-big-ben-28356798/

The consultation observed how the fast pace of the development of technology surrounding AI had led to a debate surrounding areas such as the copyright framework of AI (Intellectual Property Office, Department for Science, Innovation & Technology, et al., 2024). The concern focused on the framework not meeting the needs of the creative industries in the UK or AI sectors, with concerns around AI being used to train creative and media organisation works without their permission and with said organisations unable to obtain renumeration through licensing agreements (Intellectual Property Office, Department for Science, Innovation & Technology, et al., 2024). From the perspective of the creative and media organisations, there are concerns surrounding lack of transparency regarding how content is used and acquired or copyright enforced, and from the perspective of AI firms there are concerns surrounding a lack of clarity over how they can legally access training data creates legal risks, stunts innovation in AI, and holds back AI adoption (Intellectual Property Office, Department for Science, Innovation & Technology, et al., 2024). The Government, therefore, launched a consultation on measures requiring increased transparency from AI developers including on areas surrounding the content they use in training their models, how this is acquired, and any content generated from the models (Intellectual Property Office, Department for Science, Innovation & Technology, et al., 2024). The intention was to focus on the following areas (Intellectual Property Office, Department for Science, Innovation & Technology, et al., 2024):

·       Transparency

·       Technical standards

·       Contracts and Licensing

·       Labelling

·       Computer generated works

·       Digital Replicas

·       Emerging issues

·       Next steps

This also comes at a similar time to a campaign concerning the rights of creatives over their work amidst fears over the role of AI, and that the Government was prepared to weaken copyright law and give away creative content for free (News Media Association, 2025). The campaign, launched on 25th February, 2025, the day that the aforementioned consultation closed, feared an existential threat to the creative industries if plans were allowed to proceed whereby creative content was scraped from the internet for AI models without permission, acknowledgement, or payment, and the launch involved an unprecedented campaign whereby the front page of every major British newspaper had the campaign slogan, “MAKE IT FAIR”, emblazoned across it (Duff, 2025; News Media Association, 2025). This campaign was backed by numerous high-profile figures in the British creative industries including Andrew Lloyd Webber, Kate Bush, Sir Paul McCartney, Barbara Broccoli, Sir Stephen Fry, Dua Lipa, Sir Michael Morpugo, and Ed Sheeran (Times Letters, 2025). These concerns from across the cultural and creative sectors are worthy of consideration, and it does not seem reasonable that creative works can be scraped by AI firms without any legislation or consequences, and without the content creators receiving proper permission, acknowledgement, or payment. Taken together with the aforementioned letter on an EU level, this shows substantial concerns within the creative sector about AI and its use without proper protections and guidelines in place.

The Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre – the Creative PEC – responded to this AI and Copyright Consultation and emphasised the need for copyright protections to be safeguarded as a fundamental condition for the growth of the creative industries whilst also considering the needs for the growth of the AI sector (Gunn et al., 2025a; 2025b). The Creative PEC convened a roundtable of the Industry Champion network which was attended by 25 people who championed and came from a range of subsectors of the creative industries (Gunn, 2025). This was convened on 5th February, 2025, to discuss the principal issues relating to AI and copyright and to assess the reaction of this network to the AI and Copyright Consultation of the UK Government (Gunn, 2025).

Figure 5: AXP Photography (2025). Gothic Architecture of Westminster Palace in London. https://www.pexels.com/photo/gothic-architecture-of-westminster-palace-in-london-30624816/

The Intellectual Property Office received more than 2,500 responses to this consultation and had a number of key takeaways (Gunn, 2025).  These focused on clarity and enforcement, feasibility of an opt-out, and alternative policy futures (Gunn, 2025). Delving into these ideas in more detail, in terms of clarity and enforcement, there were challenges to the assumption of the consultation that UK law was unclear in terms of using copyrighted material in training data, and there was little evidence that copyright law hindered AI sector growth or investment (Gunn, 2025). Regarding an opt-out and its feasibility, there was the suggestion of practical and technical challenges in terms of the effectiveness of an opt-out system, a view that exiting tools for rights holders were only partial and covered only some AI platforms, a concern about the narrowness of the strategy from the Government, focusing as it did on generative models, and that pursuing alternative strategies to AI growth may in fact help the UK differentiate itself internationally (Gunn, 2025).

As for alternative policy futures, there was a view that growth in the AI sector should be balanced with proactive measures for the purpose of supporting creativity with generative AI models predicated on human creativity, and that the consultation offered the chance to begin engaging with wider issues surrounding AI and the creative industries in a more holistic way (Gunn, 2025).

Concluding thoughts

This article focused on key developments in AI, the challenges and opportunities surrounding this, and how policy organisations, governmental bodies, and the creative sector are responding. This is a fast-developing subject, and it is hoped that this discussion will be able to continue fruitfully in a way that benefits the creative industries and protects the copyright of the creative works concerned.

When considering AI and the creative sector it is important to be conscious of both the opportunities and the challenges. This is a form of digital technology which is developing at an extraordinary speed and potentially may offer great benefits. This is, however, still very new to the public and to government bodies. There is a great concern within the creative sector over rights, over copyright, over permission, acknowledgement, and payment. All of these things need to be ensured so that the creative world is protected. The broader question is this: once AI has been trained to write like a human, paint like a human, compose music like a human, what will the role of the artist be? Will artistic work become more prized in the knowledge that this was produced by human hand, that every word or note or brushstroke had a thought or emotion behind it, whilst the computer simply imputed its material? Or will the artist find that they are less valued if the public deems that they can buy or see art quicker and cheaper, the desire for everything to be as fast and readily available as possible before being quickly disposed of for the next thing? It is the latter, which is of particular concern, not just for the arts, but for education and knowledge and creativity in general. This is a question which may, and indeed should, provoke much further debate.

Bibliographical References

Duff, O. (2025, February 25). Made in Britain – stolen by generative AI. The I Paper. https://inews.co.uk/opinion/made-in-britain-stolen-by-generative-ai-3552357

Gunn, N. (2025). Industry Insights Paper: AI and Copyright. Creative Industries and Policy Centre. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15102331

Gunn, N., Bakhshi, H., & Hay, B. (2025a). Creative PEC Response to the AI and Copyright Consultation. Creative PEC. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15195932.

Gunn, N., Bakhshi, H., & Hay, B. (2025b, April 11). Creative PEC response to the AI and Copyright Consultation. Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre. Retrieved April 24, 2025, from https://pec.ac.uk/government_submissio/pec-response-ai-consultation/

Intellectual Property Office, Department for Science, Innovation & Technology, & Department for Culture, Media & Sport. (2024, December 17). Copyright and Artificial Intelligence. Retrieved April 24, 2025, from https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/copyright-and-artificial-intelligence/copyright-and-artificial-intelligence

Intellectual Property Office, Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, & Department for Culture, Media and Sport. (2024, December 17). Copyright and Artificial Intelligence. Retrieved April 24, 2025, from https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/copyright-and-artificial-intelligence

KEA European Affairs. (2025a, February 10). Wrap-up: KEA’s January Cultural Policy Digest. Retrieved February 20, 2025, from https://keanet.eu/wrap-up-keas-january-cultural-policy-digest/

KEA European Affairs. (2025b, March 10). Wrap-up: KEA’s February Cultural Policy Digest. Retrieved April 23, 2025, from https://keanet.eu/wrap-up-keas-february-cultural-policy-digest/#more-19525

KEA European Affairs. (2025c, March 13). Council of Europe adopts new Guidelines on AI, Culture, and Heritage – with the expertise of KEA’s founder Philippe Kern. Retrieved April 23, 2025, from https://keanet.eu/council-of-europe-adopts-new-guidelines-on-ai-culture-and-heritage-with-the-expertise-of-keas-founder-philippe-kern/#more-19529

Legrand, E. (2025, January 28). EU’s creative sector has ‘serious concerns’ about the Commission’s most recent draft of the General-purpose AI Code of Practice. Creative Industries News. Retrieved April 26, 2025, from https://creativeindustriesnews.com/2025/01/eus-creative-sector-has-serious-concerns-about-the-commissions-most-recent-draft-of-the-general-purpose-ai-code-of-practice/

News Media Association. (2025, February 25). UK Creative Industries Launch ‘Make it Fair Campaign. Retrieved February 25, 2025, from https://newsmediauk.org/blog/2025/02/25/uk-creative-industries-launch-make-it-fair-campaign/

Steering Committee for Culture, Heritage and Landscape (CDCPP). (2024). Guidelines given the latest technological developments, such as AI, complementing Council of Europe standards in the fields of culture, creativity and cultural heritage. Council of Europe. https://rm.coe.int/cdcpp-2024-3-en-coe-policy-guidelines-on-ai-in-culture-creativity-heri/1680b45c67

Times letters: Protecting UK’s creative copyright against AI. (2025, February 25). The Times. https://www.thetimes.com/comment/letters-to-editor/article/times-letters-protecting-uk-creative-copyright-ai-latest-news-zz3csj96v

Visual References