Artificial Intelligence, Copyright and Intellectual Property

Position Statement

Date: December 2025

Artificial intelligence technologies, particularly those using large-scale text and data mining (TDM), are transforming medical research, clinical practice, and education. While these developments bring opportunities for innovation, they also raise significant concerns regarding copyright, intellectual property (IP), and the protection of revenue streams that support the creation and dissemination of high-quality medical knowledge.

The RPS has a responsibility to safeguard the interests of our members, patients, and the wider public by ensuring that the use of AI respects the rights of creators, sustains investment in professional resources, and maintains public trust in evidence-based medicine.

Through Pharmaceutical Press, members of the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers and the Professional Publishers Association, we support the efforts of the Creative Rights in AI Coalition to advocate for a robust copyright framework which preserves our exclusive rights to control our works and thereby act as a safeguard against misuse, both organizations have joined this broad coalition that seeks to build a future that values, protects, and promotes human creativity.

We follow the recommendations of the International Association of Scientific, Technical & Medical Publishers (STM) that have issued guidelines on using content for TDM and for Training of Artificial Intelligence models. These recommendations include providing additional visible disclaimers against the non-licensed TDM-like use of our content on all pages in addition to a machine-readable statement on copyright within all our content pages.

The RPS, in its role as the professional leadership body for pharmacy, has published guidance on the use of AI in pharmacy. We support the responsible and effective use of AI across healthcare settings, including pharmacy services, to improve the safe and effective use of medicines in any setting, and achieve better patient outcomes.

AI has the potential to transform healthcare. To ensure innovation is ethical and sustainable, it is essential that copyright and IP protections remain robust. As members of professional publishing organizations, we urge policymakers to strengthen licensing, revenue protection, and transparent obligations for AI developers.