The AOP has been a campaigning body since its inception as AFAP (Association of Fashion and Advertising Photographers) in 1968, when photographers got together and spoke as a united voice against model agencies and their fees. There have been a number of victories, but none greater than the change in legislation which resulted in the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988, and more recently, the removal of Clause 43 (Orphan Works) from the Digital Economy Bill. Our work continues, addressing the challenges presented by a proposed extended text and data mining exception as well as to the accelerating impact of A.I. on creators' lives.

Every victory depends on our working with other like-minded groups such as

• British Photographic Council https://www.british-photographic-council.org
• Creators' Rights Alliance (CRA) https://www.creatorsrightsalliance.org
• Editorial Photographers UK (EPUK) https://www.epuk.org
• National Union of Journalists (NUJ) https://www.nuj.org.uk
• British Copyright Council https://www.britishcopyright.org

Representation is made to the Intellectual Property Office (IPO), or the relevant Government department, when consultation is sought on proposed legislation which may affect photographers and their livelihoods, and when draft legislation is circulated for comment.

Where necessary, we lobby and issue briefings when legislation is debated through the Houses of Parliament (Commons and Lords).

We are building a range of 'position papers', which you can access below and which set out our official opinion on a range of topics of interest.