Music stars release silent album in protest against UK AI copyright plans

Kate Bush, Cat Stevens, and Annie Lennox are just a few of the over 1, 000 musicians who have released a silent album in protest of proposed changes to British copyright laws involving artificial intelligence (AI), which they fear could lead to legalized music theft.

As the backlash grows in the United Kingdom, the album, titled Is This What We Want, was released on Tuesday and features recordings of empty studios and performance spaces.

The proposed changes would require creators to actively opt out of using their work in order to allow AI developers to train their models on any source that they have legal access to.

Critics claim that the silent album’s artists will overturn the principle of copyright law, which grants creators exclusive control over their work.

A new technological platform that could generate its own output without paying original content creators has raised legal and ethical concerns for the creative industry, including music, which has become a threat as a result of the development of AI.

In a letter to The Times newspaper, Bush and other writers and musicians criticized the UK law’s proposed “wholesale giveaway” to Silicon Valley.

Ed Newton-Rex, organiser of the project, said musicians were “united in their thorough condemnation of this ill-thought-through plan”.

UK newspapers also raised their concerns in a rare move by launching a campaign featuring wrap-around advertisements on the front of almost every national daily and an inside editorial from the papers’ editors.

Later on Tuesday, the public consultation on the proposed legal changes will close.