More than 1,000 artists – including Kate Bush, Annie Lennox of Eurythmics, and Damon Albarn of Blur and The Gorillaz – have released a “silent album” to protest the UK government’s plans to loosen copyright laws around the training of AI.
The album, released on Tuesday (February 25), is meant to evoke a point: The proposed copyright rules could silence musical artists. The point was highlighted by a question from Kate Bush of Running Up That Hill fame: “In the music of the future, will our voices go unheard?”
Titled Is This What We Want?, the silent album features a back cover track list that spells out “The British government must not legalize music theft to benefit AI companies.”
The government of Prime Minister Keir Starmer is working on a plan designed to make the UK competitive in the race to develop artificial intelligence. Based on a 50-point AI Opportunities Action Plan delivered to Parliament last month, the plan would – among other things – create an “opt-out” system for using copyrighted material to train AI.
Under an opt-out system, copyright owners have to notify AI developers if they don’t want their content to be used in training AI – a system that “revers[es] the very principle of copyright law,” the silent album campaign says.
“Opt-out models are near impossible to enforce, have yet to be proven effective anywhere else in the world, and place enormous burdens on artists, particularly emerging talent.”
“In the music of the future, will our voices go unheard?”
Kate Bush
A similar opt-out system was included in the European Union’s AI Act, passed last year. That prompted Sony Music Group and Warner Music Group to send mass letters to AI developers, informing them that they can’t use Sony and Warner music to train their AI without permission.
The silent album campaign was organized by Ed Newton-Rex, the former VP of Audio at Stability AI, who left his job at the company over concerns that it was using copyrighted material without permission.
Newton-Rex has since launched Fairly Trained, an accreditation body that certifies AI companies that train their models only on authorized copyrighted material.
“The [UK] 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,” Newton-Rex said in a statement.
“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. This album shows that, however the government tries to justify it, musicians themselves are united in their thorough condemnation of this ill-thought-through plan.”
“Opt-out models are near impossible to enforce, have yet to be proven effective anywhere else in the world, and place enormous burdens on artists, particularly emerging talent.”
Silent album campaign
Among the artists who collaborated on the silent album are Billy Ocean, Ed O’Brien, Dan Smith, The Clash, Mystery Jets, Jamiroquai, Imogen Heap, Yusuf/Cat Stevens, Riz Ahmed, Tori Amos, Hans Zimmer, James MacMillan, Max Richter, John Rutter, The Kanneh-Masons, The King’s Singers, The Sixteen, Roderick Williams, Sarah Connolly, Nicky Spence, and Ian Bostridge, among many others.
The group includes recording artists, composers, conductors, singers, and producers who have won Oscars, Grammys, and BRIT Awards.
“I fear that we will become the last generation of artists that can build careers in UK music. We cannot be abandoned by the government and have our work stolen for the profit of Big Tech,” singer-songwriter Naomi Kimpenu said.
“These proposals will shatter the prospects of so many emerging artists in the UK. If AI steals the rewards of creativity, it destroys that creativity. The government’s plan would be a dystopian future no one voted for, and we must choose a different path.”
Composer, pianist and producer Max Richter added: “The government’s proposals would impoverish creators, favouring those automating creativity over the people who compose our music, write our literature, paint our art.”
“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.”
Ed Newton-Rex, Fairly Trained
The silent album comes days after the heads of the big three global music companies – Sony Music Entertainment Chairman Rob Stringer, Universal Music Group Chairman and CEO Sir Lucian Grainge, and Warner Music Group CEO Robert Kyncl – joined a Daily Mail campaign to oppose the proposed UK rules.
Stringer asserted that “creators must be rewarded for being part of this technological revolution,” while Kyncl said the proposed rule “would undermine the ability of artists and songwriters, copyright holders that invest in them and the creative community at large, to monetize and control their creative works and earn a living from their creativity.”
“The UK stands at a decisive crossroads because what is ‘Made in Britain’ and exported to the world is not limited to physical products, but also intellectual property and copyright including music, visual art, life sciences and more,” Grainge said.
Echoing the Daily Mail campaign, the silent album campaign noted that UK music contributed £7.6 billion to the country’s economy in 2023, and accounted for £4.6 billion in exports.
“Under proposed changes to UK copyright law, the government risks diminishing music’s proven economic success, extinguishing jobs in the music industry and undermining Britain’s global soft-power advantage,” the silent album campaign said.
The silent album can be heard here.Music Business Worldwide
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