Hong Kong delays AI copyright law to focus on guidelines first

Hong Kong authorities will delay a proposed legal amendment to protect copyrighted works from being used to train artificial intelligence (AI) models and will issue operational guidelines first, the South China Morning Post has learned.

The Copyright (Amendment) Bill 2025, which aimed to introduce an “opt-out” mechanism for text and data mining to support AI technology development, was originally scheduled to be submitted to the Legislative Council in the first half of last year. The item was removed from Legco’s legislative agenda last August.

The legislative proposal, which was mentioned in last year’s policy address, did not appear in the 2026 blueprint or the city’s first five-year plan, delivered together earlier this month.

The “opt-out” mechanism had raised concerns after it was proposed in 2024, with critics saying it would “involve a lot of effort” for copyright holders to approach AI companies to check whether their work had been used for AI-generated content. They counter-proposed an “opt-in” mechanism.