More than 1,000 musicians, including Kate Bush and Cat Stevens, have released a silent album to register their protest against the proposed changes to Britain’s copyright laws. If passed, the new law would permit tech companies to use their music to train AI models.
It will also allow AI developers to use online content from creators to aid in the development of their models unless the copyright holders choose to “opt out.”
With the album titled ‘Is This What We Want?’, the artists seek to raise awareness of the possible effects on livelihoods and the UK music industry. The musicians’ charity, Help Musicians, will receive the profits.
The record, created by Kate Bush, Hans Zimmer, Billy Ocean, and Annie Lennox, is not completely silent.
The artists claim the recordings of deserted studios depict “the impact we expect the government’s proposals would have on musicians’ livelihoods,” The New York Times reported.
The 12 tracks are recordings of vacant performance venues and studios, “to symbolise what we expect will happen if the government’s proposals go through.”
The names of the 12 tracks are defined as: “The British government must not legalise music theft to benefit AI companies.”
“It’s a mix of artists that everyone’s heard of and, you know, and many musicians who are not household names,” Ed Newton-Rex, an AI developer and composer who organised the protest album, told The Associated Press.
Large volumes of data, such as text, photos, or music, are mined or learnt by generative AI programs to create new material that appears to have been created by a person.
A so-called “rights reservation”-the option to opt out-would be granted to artists or other creators under the plans, BBC reported.
According to a statement released by a Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) representative, the UK’s “current regime for copyright and AI is holding back the creative industries, media and AI sector from realising their full potential – and that cannot continue.”
Britain Prime Minister Keir Starmer recently suggested measures that would allow AI developers to train their models on any content that they have legal access to.
Several artists have strongly protested the amendments, arguing that they would go against the copyright law’s principle that gives authors sole rights over their creations.
