Over 1,000 musicians, including prominent artists like Kate Bush, Cat Stevens, and Annie Lennox, have launched a silent album titled “Is This What We Want” in protest of proposed changes to British copyright laws concerning artificial intelligence (AI), Al Jazeera reports.
The silent album, released on Tuesday, features recordings of empty studios and performance spaces as a symbolic demonstration against what artists fear could lead to legalized music theft.
The proposed amendments to UK copyright law would allow AI developers to train their models on any material they have lawful access to, requiring creators to proactively opt out to prevent their work from being used. Critics argue this would reverse the fundamental principle of copyright law, which traditionally grants creators exclusive control over their intellectual property.
The emergence of AI poses a significant challenge to the creative industry, particularly the music sector, raising complex legal and ethical questions regarding AI’s ability to generate its own output without compensating the original content creators.
Kate Bush and other signatories denounced the proposals as a “wholesale giveaway” to Silicon Valley in a letter published in The Times.
Ed Newton-Rex, the organizer of the protest project, stated that musicians are “united in their thorough condemnation of this ill-thought-through plan.”
In a rare show of unity, UK newspapers also voiced their concerns, launching a coordinated campaign featuring wrap-around advertisements on the front pages of nearly every national daily, accompanied by an editorial from the papers’ editors.
The public consultation on the proposed legal changes is scheduled to close later on Tuesday.
While British Prime Minister Keir Starmer aims to position the UK as a global superpower in the AI industry, a government spokesperson responded to the album by arguing that the current copyright and AI regime is hindering the creative industries from “realising their full potential.”
