Silence speaks volumes: music artists stand up to proposed AI impact on copyright law
The UK music industry has launched a silent protest against proposed changes to copyright law which could allow generative artificial intelligence (AI) systems to be used for commercial purposes. A group of more than 1,000 musicians and artists, including Kate Bush, The Clash, Damon Albarn, Annie Lennox and Billy Ocean, are among those said to feature on an album which consists of silence, recorded in recording studios. The group features Oscar, Grammy and BRIT Award winners, recording artists, composers, conductors, singers and producers, collectively united in a stand against the proposal from the government.
The message "The British government must not legalise music theft to benefit AI companies" is spelt by the name of the album tracks.
The album release follows the end of the consultation by the government in relation to generative AI systems (25 February) which proposes introducing an exception to copyright law for AI training for commercial purposes. This means that rights-holders must formally opt out of their works being used by AI training.
Generative AI is a type of AI system which can generate new content such as text, audio, image, video and of course, music content, from existing content online. An example of this type of AI is generative chatbot, ChatGPT. The proposals would allow rightsholders the ability to ‘opt out’ of their content being used, but there are questions around the feasibly of being able to achieve this with the multiple artificial intelligence systems (potentially thousands) available online.
The use of increasingly sophisticated AI tools to generate musical works is at the forefront of UK copyright law. Artists are arguing the impact of the proposals on livelihoods across the creative music industry at all levels would be hugely detrimental.
The musician’s charity, ‘Help Musicians’ will be the recipient of profits from the album.
A full list of the artists and musicians involved and making a stand, can be found at: Is This What We Want?
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