From the Newsdesk

The latest news stories from ACID & the world of IP

ACID has signed a coalition letter to senior Australian politicians, urging them to reject copyright changes that would let AI companies train their models on copyrighted work without permission.
ACID and Folksy are excited to announce a partnership to provide Folksy sellers and the platform with IP support, advice and education.
Following the success of ACID’s Dids Macdonald OBE’s talk on AI and intellectual property (IP) at the British Furniture Association’s AI Summit in September 2026, Dids sat down with The Furniture Magazine to answer their questions on what design protection covers, what AI has changed, and what a small workshop can do when it finds a copy.
At the invitation of the Michael Kyprianou LLC, organisers of Cyprus Intellectual Property (IP) Day held in Nicosia recently, Dids Macdonald, OBE., Chair and Co-founder of Anti Copying In Design (ACID) was invited to talk about “IP as a Positive Force for Growth” with the caveat, “But only if the copycat culture from generative AI data scraping to fakes and knock offs are curtailed”.
At a packed conference of industry professionals in the Furniture Industry, organised by the National Furniture Association last week at the Coventry Building Society Arena, ACID’s Chair, Dids Macdonald OBE, using an iceberg as an analogy said about artificial intelligence, “What we know is minimal and exciting, but what we don’t know is daunting and poses enormous risk.”
ACID’s recent lunchtime learning webinar with SnapDragon Monitoring was a timely reminder of the threats to brands and designers online, especially as we enter one of the busiest periods of the year; not least because of the rise in AI data scraping causing much concern amongst the design community. If you missed the webinar, here’s how you can best protect your brand online should you ever encounter the worst.
Launched today at Westminster is the latest Design Economy 2026, the Design Council’s flagship tri-annual study into the value of design, shows the scale of design’s contribution across industries, places and jobs, and argues that strengthening design capability will be critical to delivering good growth across the UK. 
The Government has responded. Now it’s time to make sure creators’ rights are protected.
Watch this short video explainer to learn what the ACID IP Databank is for and how to use it.
Design is the golden thread that runs through the creative industries and underpins all eight of the Government’s growth objectives. Contributing £100 billion to UK GVA and supporting 1.97 million people in design and design-skilled roles, it is a cornerstone of the UK’s economy.
Online behemoths Shein and Temu battled it out recently in the High Court. The ruling found that Temu was not liable for Shein’s alleged copyright infringement by third party sellers, partly because Temu acted as an intermediary without knowledge of specific infringement.

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