The Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) has announced that, from 1 May 2025, new and renewed licences for corporate and public sector organisations will cover 'workplace generative AI use'. While this development will be welcomed by many organisations whose employees wish to use copyright protected content as prompts when using GenAI tools, they will need to be aware of the surrounding terms and conditions which impose a number of constraints on the permissions granted. This is particularly the case in relation to restrictions and limitations on the use of outputs produced as a result of using licensed works as prompts, which may serve to limit the effectiveness of the permissions granted.
What is the CLA?
The CLA is a collective management organisation responsible for the collective licensing of copying published materials of its members such as book chapters, journal articles, website content, and press cuttings. Many businesses will have in place a CLA Business Licence (the rates for which depend upon professional employee numbers and the business' SIC code) which permits photocopying, scanning and copying of digital content of relevant materials, subject to certain limits and restrictions set out under the licence. The licensee must have lawful access to the source material, ie, they own the hard copy of a relevant book, have purchased or subscribed to the relevant publication, or the website in question is free-to-view. Where individual titles, authors and publications are not covered by the CLA licence, users who want to make copies must contact the relevant copyright owner directly for relevant permissions.
Licence terms for workplace generative AI use
From 1 May 2025, the CLA Business Licence will include permissions allowing lawful copying and inclusion of CLA licensed works from participating publishers as prompts for GenAI (GAI) tools.
The workplace GAI permissions allowing the use of relevant materials as prompts are subject to certain restrictions, including as follows:
- The licence only covers the use of GAI tools that do not use prompts for training or fine-tuning the underlying model: Prompts (and outputs) must not be used for the purposes of training or fine-tuning algorithms or the GAI model. Where an organisation uses a GAI system that is owned and controlled by a third party, it must ensure that such mechanisms are switched off.
- Limits on the amount of content used as a prompt: The amount of content that can be used as a prompt is the same as applies under the CLA's standard licence terms, ie, up to 5% of a publication or one chapter or article, whichever is the greater.
- GAI outputs cannot form part of an organisation's products or services: The permission only extends to uses that relate to the licensee's internal information purposes (subject to the limited permissions relating to external use of outputs, see further below).
- GAI outputs must not be used as a substitute for original creative work, and must not compete with published works: The licensee cannot use any outputs to create products or services which (a) directly compete with the purchasing or creation of original creative works, (b) conflict with the normal exploitation of any licensed materials, or (c) otherwise prejudice the legitimate interests of a rights holder.
- GAI outputs must not incorporate a substantial part of the original prompt: Outputs that are made available or used externally (as opposed to internally within an organisation) cannot include the whole or a substantial part of any individual licensed material.
- GAI outputs must not be systematically indexed or stored in a library, database, archive or similar resource.
- GAI outputs used externally must cite or reference the published content used as a prompt: Limited external uses of outputs are permitted provided that they (a) include appropriate citation by way of markings for the licensed material used as a prompt (which could be in the form of a written citation or a hyperlink to the original content), and (b) are not made directly available to third parties as part of a commercial product or service (whether paid for or not). Licensees are also required not to misrepresent that outputs are human-generated.
- Images may only be used as prompts if they are part of the published work.
- Compliance audits: The licensee agrees to provide appropriate access to its records and systems for the CLA to carry out a compliance audit in relation to the workplace GAI permissions no more than twice a year.
What else is not covered by the permissions for workplace generative AI use?
Those organisations that want to copy works published by participating publishers in order to undertake text and data mining (TDM) ie, extracting useful information and insights from large amounts of unstructured data on an automated basis to identify trends, patterns and knowledge, will need to obtain the CLA's new TDM licence. The CLA is also consulting with its members on collective licensing of GenAI training.
Practical implications in relation to external uses of GAI outputs
The CLA provides a list of what it considers to be permissible and impermissible external uses of GAI outputs produced following the use of licensed materials as prompts:
Permissible uses of GAI outputs
- Use by an internal communications team to help with writing a news release about a new product, to go on its website; or to summarise press coverage of a new product, to send to external partners.
- Sharing summaries of articles with collaboration partners on an ad hoc basis by email.
- Sharing a document externally comprising new AI-generated text generated by prompting a GAI tool with extracts of published works, with citations of the original sources.
- Supplying GAI outputs to any regulatory authority in the UK for regulatory or marketing approval or as part of filing a patent application.
Impermissible uses of GAI outputs
- Use by a communications agency to write a news release on behalf of a client.
- Use as part of a media monitoring service to summarise press coverage on behalf of a client.
- Sharing summaries of the latest research with collaboration partners in a shared repository.
- Sharing externally a document which, interspersed with new AI-generated text, includes several long sections repeated verbatim from published works (comprising a substantial part of the original work).
- Sharing externally a document comprising new AI-generated text generated by prompting a GAI tool with extracts of published works, without citations of the original sources.
- Using GAI outputs externally as part of a professional service in connection with regulatory approval or patent filings.
- Publication or use of GAI outputs on social media is likely to be in breach of the licence terms (because most social media platforms use user content to train their generative AI systems).
Comment
The CLA has published a research report indicating that 82% of professionals are using third party content in generative AI prompts, with only 24% reporting a strong understanding of the copyright terms and conditions of the GAI tools they use – which it suggests indicates a disconnect between copyright awareness and responsible use, and an increased risk of unintentional copyright infringement. Clearly, therefore, the extension of the CLA licensed terms to GenAI workplace activities will be beneficial in respect of providing reassurances around an organisation's internal uses of GAI tools - when employees are using GenAI tools to prepare internal presentations, reports and communications, and suchlike. However, the restrictions in relation to use of GAI outputs introduce levels of complexity which may be difficult for some organisations to effectively manage and monitor, and so it remains important to have robust policies in place around employees' use of GAI tools. Such a policy should, of course, cover a broad range of issues, in addition to copyright risks.
For more information about the interplay between generative AI and IP download our client guide, and sign up to our Generative AI and IP Tracker for the latest developments in the courts and from policy makers/legislators.