More than 1,000 musicians, including Kate Bush, Damon Albarn and Annie Lennox, have released a silent album in protest against UK government plans to let artificial intelligence companies use copyright-protected work without permission, as a celebrity backlash builds against the proposals.
The recordings of dormant music studios and performance spaces, called Is This What We Want?, are being released as leading cultural figures warn livelihoods are under threat from proposed changes to copyright law.
Paul McCartney, Elton John, Abba’s Björn Ulvaeus, the actor Julianne Moore and the authors Val McDermid and Richard Osman are among the celebrities who have called for protection of their work from unlicensed use by tech companies in recent months.
The music-free album represents the impact on artists’ livelihoods if the government pushes ahead with its plans, according to Ed Newton-Rex, the British composer and former AI executive behind the idea.
“The government’s proposal would hand the life’s work of the country’s musicians to AI companies, for free, letting those companies exploit musicians’ work to outcompete them,” he said.
“It is a plan that would not only be disastrous for musicians, but that is totally unnecessary: the UK can be leaders in AI without throwing our world-leading creative industries under the bus.”
The project is a protest against a government proposal to let AI firms train their algorithms on the work of creative professionals under a new copyright exemption. The plan includes “an opt-out” option – where creatives and companies can block their work from being used – that has been dismissed by critics as unfair and unworkable.
The album contains 12 recordings with more than 1,000 artists credited as co-writers, with the individual artist behind each of the dozen “silent” tracks uncredited. However, it is understood that Kate Bush has recorded one of the dozen tracks in her studio.
Bush said: “In the music of the future, will our voices go unheard?”
The musicians credited as co-writers include Tori Amos, Billy Ocean, the Clash and the Oscar-winning composer Hans Zimmer as well as the Kanneh-Mason family of classical musicians. The track listing spells out the message: “The British government must not legalise music theft to benefit AI companies.”
Profits from the album, which is available on streaming services such as Spotify, will be donated to the musicians’ charity Help Musicians.
The dispute over AI firms’ use of copyrighted work stems from how they create the technology underpinning their products.
The AI models powering systems such as the ChatGPT chatbot, the image creator Stable Diffusion and the music tool Suno are fed vast amounts of data taken from the internet and learn to spot patterns in that information. This allows them to predict the next word in a sentence, create realistic images or produce convincing audio.
However, the use of novels, music tracks, newspaper articles, photographs, art and other copyright-protected work without permission has led to a wave of lawsuits from authors, news publishers, music companies and artists.
Some companies have signed licensing agreements with AI firms, including the Guardian, which has struck a deal with OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT.
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The album is being released on Tuesday to coincide with the closing of a government consultation on changes to copyright law, in which a waiver for AI firms is the preferred option.
Other protests to mark the end of the consultation include British daily newspapers, including the Guardian, featuring the slogan “Make It Fair” on their front pages. The protest also accuses the government of trying to change the law to “favour big tech platforms”.
A letter in the Times from 34 leading creatives published on Tuesday also criticises the government’s stance, with signatories including Barbara Broccoli, Helen Fielding, Stephen Fry, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Ed Sheeran and Tom Stoppard.
The letter warns that the proposals “represent a wholesale giveaway of rights and income from the UK’s creative sectors to Big Tech”.
Warning the government against crushing the creative industries in its drive for growth, Fry said: “You don’t promote growth in a garden by allowing all the pests to feast on the fruit and flowers, and you don’t promote growth in an economy by allowing all the AIs to feast on the fruits of our creators.”
A UK government spokesperson said: “As it stands, 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.
“That’s why we have been consulting on a new approach that protects the interests of both AI developers and rights holders and delivers a solution which allows both to thrive.”
Source: theguardian.com
