'Absolute losers': Elton John slams government over AI plans
Elton John has accused the British government of 'committing theft' by proposing tech firms could train artificial intelligence models on the UK's music and creative output without guaranteeing proper recompense.
Creative industries globally are grappling with the legal and ethical implications of AI models that can produce work after being trained on existing material.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer wants the UK to become an AI superpower and has proposed relaxing copyright laws to allow AI developers to train their models on any material to which they have lawful access.
The proposal would require creators to proactively opt out to stop their work from being used.
The biggest names in the industry, including John, Paul McCartney, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Ed Sheeran, have urged the government to change course, saying the proposal will make it even harder for young people to make a living in the creative industries.
John described the government as 'absolute losers' and said he feels 'incredibly betrayed' over plans to exempt technology firms from copyright laws.
'The danger is for young artists, they haven't got the resources to keep checking or fight big tech,' he told the BBC.
'It's criminal and I feel incredibly betrayed.
'A machine ... doesn't have a soul, doesn't have a heart, it doesn't have human feeling, it doesn't have passion. Human beings, when they create something, are doing it ... to bring pleasure to lots of people,' he said, adding that he thought the government was 'just being absolute losers, and I'm very angry about it'.
John has sold more than 300 million records across his six-decade career.
A supporter of Starmer's Labour Party, he said he had always sought to support young artists and would continue to fight against the changes.
The government says it is seeking a solution that will enable creative industries and AI companies to flourish.
It said on Sunday it was consulting on measures, would publish an assessment on the economic impact of any move, and would not sign off on anything unless it was 'completely satisfied they work for creators'.
Britain has long outperformed its comparatively small population in the creative industries, with thousands employed in sectors including theatre, film, advertising, publishing and music.
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West Australian
3 hours ago
- West Australian
BEN HARVEY: Why Rita Saffioti's the human punchline
Rita Saffioti, you are weak as p***. The writing was on the wall that bare-knuckle boxing was politically poisonous but you didn't have the guts to use your power as Sports Minister to veto it. Instead, you let the Combat Sports Commission do your dirty work by putting a last-minute kybosh on the Bare Knuckle Boxing Championship event. You were the only person who wanted this thing to happen, Rita. For weeks you failed to read the room, insisting community concern was a storm in a teacup that would blow over when West Australians realised just how much fun it was watching two people bash each other the way nature intended. You knew best. Perhaps it was because eight years ago you stared down those opposed to cage fighting. Perhaps it was because, having represented the good burghers of West Swan for so long, you know a thing or two about punch-ups. You refused to intervene even when it emerged that a former bikie who went to jail for bashing a police informant was being considered for the card. His opponent? A British reality TV 'star' called Aaron Chalmers who, presumably, decided that having his head punched in was worth it because it gave him the requisite brain damage for another season on Geordie Shore. 'The advice to me is that with very strict protocols and criteria that the event, if the organiser were to meet that, that it could be conducted in WA,' you said. In making it clear you were a woman not for turning you made the entire Cabinet look like hapless idiots. Why buy tickets to Cirque du Soleil when you can watch Meredith Hammat contorting herself while dodging questions about how a health minister could endorse what the Australian Medical Association was calling a blood sport. If it was up to the AMA the most dangerous sport in WA would be Ring a Ring o' Roses (perhaps accompanied by someone playing the lute) so we don't want to be led by the nose by medicos, but still. Your government, which adhered slavishly to medical advice during COVID, was very quick to discount the opinion of doctors on this one. I hope you apologised to Meredith for making her look such a fool. You owe Paul Papalia a beer as well. He didn't hesitate in going over the top for you, making out that bare-knuckle boxing was something the Famous Five might indulge in, refreshing themselves with lashings of ginger beer between bouts. At least Paul sounded like he believed what he was saying. Perhaps his performance was compelling because he was a navy clearance diver before politics. Let's face it, anyone who swims towards the bomb has a unique appreciation of risk. Rita, so terrified are ministers of your wrath in Budget expenditure review committee meetings, they would have built a Thunderdome in your honour. Two men enter, one man leaves, they would have chanted, had you asked. You took advantage of their pathetic weakness and insisted they back your absurd rationale that the Combat Sports Commission could never be questioned. It's not the bloody Roman Senate, Rita; it's sports administration. 'I can't stop one and then not stop others,' you said, hinting that your ministerial override risked the fall of the Westminster system. It was only when the July 19 card was confirmed that you appeared to have realised there might be a political problem. It turns out there is something as bad as a former bikie who bashed a police informant being the star of the show. Alex 'Godly Strong' is a 140kg, 195cm meat-axe who went to prison for bashing a drug dealer during an aggravated home invasion. It was a bridge too far. Labor had ceded the moral high ground to Basil Zempilas and was enjoying what must have been a novel view. Everyone knew the wound needed to be cauterised. But still you refused to act. And now you're asking us to believe that at the last minute the Combat Sports Commission 'independently' arrived at the conclusion that this show could not go on. The same commission whose chair, Bob Kucera, had been so enthusiastic about this event he was practically humming Eye of the Tiger. This was a contest between 'superb athletes', Bob told us a couple of weeks ago. Strict medical conditions had to be met before anyone could step in the ring, he said. And it was best to have these kind of events held out in the open, otherwise bare-knuckle fighting might go underground, the former cop warned ominously. Bob even managed to keep a straight face when he said that last one. I was waiting for him to gush, 'I would like to thank the Academy' at the end of each interview. He was so convincing the promoters started selling tickets to the fight! Bob had your back, Rita. And you hung him out to dry. You made him look like a stooge. Does anyone believe that there was no political pressure here? That nobody in the executive arm of government had a quiet word to the commission about the need to somehow get the shit back in the horse? That there were no phone calls asking that the commission take one for the team? Bull****. I can't imagine what the atmosphere was like in the State Solicitor's Office when the commission knocked back the event application. Did someone at least give them the heads-up that we were about to pick a legal fight with Conor McGregor, the man who owns Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship? Rita, do you have any idea how wealthy this bloke is? He earnt $US130 million in one fight against Floyd Mayweather, for the love of God. The only people richer than Conor are his lawyers. We were worried about Clive Palmer's lawsuit bankrupting us; wait for this costs order! Rita, I know that you didn't initiate this mess. That was your predecessor, David Templeman. David should never have recognised bare-knuckle fighting as a sport when the application was made prior to the last State election. He should have understood the politics but was probably distracted by the excitement of delivering his last end-of-year serenade to the Legislative Assembly. You, on the other hand, Rita, should have known better. You're no political fool. There's no excuse for allowing this public policy absurdity to run for so long.
The Advertiser
9 hours ago
- The Advertiser
David Attenborough's Ocean a wake-up call from the sea
An ominous chain unspools through the water. Then comes chaos. A churning cloud of mud erupts as a net ploughs the sea floor, wrenching rays, fish and a squid from their home in a violent swirl of destruction. This is industrial bottom trawling. It's not CGI. It's real. And it's legal. Ocean With David Attenborough is a brutal reminder of how little we see and how much is at stake. The film is a sweeping celebration of marine life and a stark expose of the forces pushing the ocean toward collapse. The British naturalist and broadcaster, now 99, anchors the film with a deeply personal reflection: "After living for nearly 100 years on this planet, I now understand that the most important place on earth is not on land, but at sea." The film traces Attenborough's lifetime - an era of unprecedented ocean discovery - through the lush beauty of coral reefs, kelp forests and deep-sea wanderers, captured in breathtaking, revelatory ways. But this is not the Attenborough film we grew up with. As the environment unravels, so too has the tone of his storytelling. Ocean is more urgent, more unflinching. Never-before-seen footage of mass coral bleaching, dwindling fish stocks and industrial-scale exploitation reveals just how vulnerable the sea has become. The film's power lies not only in what it shows, but in how rarely such destruction is witnessed. "I think we've got to the point where we've changed so much of the natural world that it's almost remiss if you don't show it," co-director Colin Butfield said. "Nobody's ever professionally filmed bottom trawling before. And yet it's happening practically everywhere." The practice is not only legal, he adds, but often subsidised. "For too long, everything in the ocean has been invisible," Butfield said. "Most people picture fishing as small boats heading out from a local harbour. They're not picturing factories at sea scraping the seabed." In one harrowing scene, mounds of unwanted catch are dumped back into the sea already dead. About nine million tonnes of marine life are caught and discarded each year as bycatch. In some bottom trawl fisheries, discards make up more than half the haul. Still, Ocean is no eulogy. Its final act offers a stirring glimpse of what recovery can look like: kelp forests rebounding under protection, vast marine reserves teeming with life and the world's largest albatross colony thriving in Hawaii's Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument. These aren't fantasies - they're evidence of what the ocean can become again, if given the chance. Timed to World Oceans Day and the United Nations Ocean Conference in Nice, the film arrives amid a growing global push to protect 30 per cent of the ocean by 2030 - a goal endorsed by more than 190 countries. But today, just 2.7 per cent of the ocean is effectively protected from harmful industrial activity. The film's message is clear: The laws of today are failing the seas. So-called "protected" areas often aren't. And banning destructive practices such as bottom trawling is not just feasible - it's imperative. As always, Attenborough is a voice of moral clarity. "This could be the moment of change," he says. Ocean gives us the reason to believe - and the evidence to demand - that it must be. Ocean screens on National Geographic in the US and streams globally on Disney+ and Hulu from Sunday. An ominous chain unspools through the water. Then comes chaos. A churning cloud of mud erupts as a net ploughs the sea floor, wrenching rays, fish and a squid from their home in a violent swirl of destruction. This is industrial bottom trawling. It's not CGI. It's real. And it's legal. Ocean With David Attenborough is a brutal reminder of how little we see and how much is at stake. The film is a sweeping celebration of marine life and a stark expose of the forces pushing the ocean toward collapse. The British naturalist and broadcaster, now 99, anchors the film with a deeply personal reflection: "After living for nearly 100 years on this planet, I now understand that the most important place on earth is not on land, but at sea." The film traces Attenborough's lifetime - an era of unprecedented ocean discovery - through the lush beauty of coral reefs, kelp forests and deep-sea wanderers, captured in breathtaking, revelatory ways. But this is not the Attenborough film we grew up with. As the environment unravels, so too has the tone of his storytelling. Ocean is more urgent, more unflinching. Never-before-seen footage of mass coral bleaching, dwindling fish stocks and industrial-scale exploitation reveals just how vulnerable the sea has become. The film's power lies not only in what it shows, but in how rarely such destruction is witnessed. "I think we've got to the point where we've changed so much of the natural world that it's almost remiss if you don't show it," co-director Colin Butfield said. "Nobody's ever professionally filmed bottom trawling before. And yet it's happening practically everywhere." The practice is not only legal, he adds, but often subsidised. "For too long, everything in the ocean has been invisible," Butfield said. "Most people picture fishing as small boats heading out from a local harbour. They're not picturing factories at sea scraping the seabed." In one harrowing scene, mounds of unwanted catch are dumped back into the sea already dead. About nine million tonnes of marine life are caught and discarded each year as bycatch. In some bottom trawl fisheries, discards make up more than half the haul. Still, Ocean is no eulogy. Its final act offers a stirring glimpse of what recovery can look like: kelp forests rebounding under protection, vast marine reserves teeming with life and the world's largest albatross colony thriving in Hawaii's Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument. These aren't fantasies - they're evidence of what the ocean can become again, if given the chance. Timed to World Oceans Day and the United Nations Ocean Conference in Nice, the film arrives amid a growing global push to protect 30 per cent of the ocean by 2030 - a goal endorsed by more than 190 countries. But today, just 2.7 per cent of the ocean is effectively protected from harmful industrial activity. The film's message is clear: The laws of today are failing the seas. So-called "protected" areas often aren't. And banning destructive practices such as bottom trawling is not just feasible - it's imperative. As always, Attenborough is a voice of moral clarity. "This could be the moment of change," he says. Ocean gives us the reason to believe - and the evidence to demand - that it must be. Ocean screens on National Geographic in the US and streams globally on Disney+ and Hulu from Sunday. An ominous chain unspools through the water. Then comes chaos. A churning cloud of mud erupts as a net ploughs the sea floor, wrenching rays, fish and a squid from their home in a violent swirl of destruction. This is industrial bottom trawling. It's not CGI. It's real. And it's legal. Ocean With David Attenborough is a brutal reminder of how little we see and how much is at stake. The film is a sweeping celebration of marine life and a stark expose of the forces pushing the ocean toward collapse. The British naturalist and broadcaster, now 99, anchors the film with a deeply personal reflection: "After living for nearly 100 years on this planet, I now understand that the most important place on earth is not on land, but at sea." The film traces Attenborough's lifetime - an era of unprecedented ocean discovery - through the lush beauty of coral reefs, kelp forests and deep-sea wanderers, captured in breathtaking, revelatory ways. But this is not the Attenborough film we grew up with. As the environment unravels, so too has the tone of his storytelling. Ocean is more urgent, more unflinching. Never-before-seen footage of mass coral bleaching, dwindling fish stocks and industrial-scale exploitation reveals just how vulnerable the sea has become. The film's power lies not only in what it shows, but in how rarely such destruction is witnessed. "I think we've got to the point where we've changed so much of the natural world that it's almost remiss if you don't show it," co-director Colin Butfield said. "Nobody's ever professionally filmed bottom trawling before. And yet it's happening practically everywhere." The practice is not only legal, he adds, but often subsidised. "For too long, everything in the ocean has been invisible," Butfield said. "Most people picture fishing as small boats heading out from a local harbour. They're not picturing factories at sea scraping the seabed." In one harrowing scene, mounds of unwanted catch are dumped back into the sea already dead. About nine million tonnes of marine life are caught and discarded each year as bycatch. In some bottom trawl fisheries, discards make up more than half the haul. Still, Ocean is no eulogy. Its final act offers a stirring glimpse of what recovery can look like: kelp forests rebounding under protection, vast marine reserves teeming with life and the world's largest albatross colony thriving in Hawaii's Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument. These aren't fantasies - they're evidence of what the ocean can become again, if given the chance. Timed to World Oceans Day and the United Nations Ocean Conference in Nice, the film arrives amid a growing global push to protect 30 per cent of the ocean by 2030 - a goal endorsed by more than 190 countries. But today, just 2.7 per cent of the ocean is effectively protected from harmful industrial activity. The film's message is clear: The laws of today are failing the seas. So-called "protected" areas often aren't. And banning destructive practices such as bottom trawling is not just feasible - it's imperative. As always, Attenborough is a voice of moral clarity. "This could be the moment of change," he says. Ocean gives us the reason to believe - and the evidence to demand - that it must be. Ocean screens on National Geographic in the US and streams globally on Disney+ and Hulu from Sunday. An ominous chain unspools through the water. Then comes chaos. A churning cloud of mud erupts as a net ploughs the sea floor, wrenching rays, fish and a squid from their home in a violent swirl of destruction. This is industrial bottom trawling. It's not CGI. It's real. And it's legal. Ocean With David Attenborough is a brutal reminder of how little we see and how much is at stake. The film is a sweeping celebration of marine life and a stark expose of the forces pushing the ocean toward collapse. The British naturalist and broadcaster, now 99, anchors the film with a deeply personal reflection: "After living for nearly 100 years on this planet, I now understand that the most important place on earth is not on land, but at sea." The film traces Attenborough's lifetime - an era of unprecedented ocean discovery - through the lush beauty of coral reefs, kelp forests and deep-sea wanderers, captured in breathtaking, revelatory ways. But this is not the Attenborough film we grew up with. As the environment unravels, so too has the tone of his storytelling. Ocean is more urgent, more unflinching. Never-before-seen footage of mass coral bleaching, dwindling fish stocks and industrial-scale exploitation reveals just how vulnerable the sea has become. The film's power lies not only in what it shows, but in how rarely such destruction is witnessed. "I think we've got to the point where we've changed so much of the natural world that it's almost remiss if you don't show it," co-director Colin Butfield said. "Nobody's ever professionally filmed bottom trawling before. And yet it's happening practically everywhere." The practice is not only legal, he adds, but often subsidised. "For too long, everything in the ocean has been invisible," Butfield said. "Most people picture fishing as small boats heading out from a local harbour. They're not picturing factories at sea scraping the seabed." In one harrowing scene, mounds of unwanted catch are dumped back into the sea already dead. About nine million tonnes of marine life are caught and discarded each year as bycatch. In some bottom trawl fisheries, discards make up more than half the haul. Still, Ocean is no eulogy. Its final act offers a stirring glimpse of what recovery can look like: kelp forests rebounding under protection, vast marine reserves teeming with life and the world's largest albatross colony thriving in Hawaii's Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument. These aren't fantasies - they're evidence of what the ocean can become again, if given the chance. Timed to World Oceans Day and the United Nations Ocean Conference in Nice, the film arrives amid a growing global push to protect 30 per cent of the ocean by 2030 - a goal endorsed by more than 190 countries. But today, just 2.7 per cent of the ocean is effectively protected from harmful industrial activity. The film's message is clear: The laws of today are failing the seas. So-called "protected" areas often aren't. And banning destructive practices such as bottom trawling is not just feasible - it's imperative. As always, Attenborough is a voice of moral clarity. "This could be the moment of change," he says. Ocean gives us the reason to believe - and the evidence to demand - that it must be. Ocean screens on National Geographic in the US and streams globally on Disney+ and Hulu from Sunday.
Man of Many
11 hours ago
- Man of Many
5 Things We Learned About the Next ‘James Bond' Game: 007 First Light
By Dean Blake - News Published: 7 June 2025 |Last Updated: 5 June 2025 Share Copy Link Readtime: 5 min The Lowdown: 007 First Light | Image: IO Interactive Every product is carefully selected by our editors and experts. If you buy from a link, we may earn a commission. Learn more. For more information on how we test products, click here. At a time that we've been waiting patiently for any news of when everybody's favourite secret agent will be making his next appearance on the big screen, Sony just went ahead and dropped a trailer for a brand new James Bond game. 007 First Light is a new take on the often reinterpreted character, clearly eschewing the book-and-film series' various canons to present a new origin story: one unique to this much younger version of Bond. Created by IO Interactive, the people behind the incredible Hitman series, 007 First Light looks particularly promising in a industry finally taking licensed games seriously. If you haven't seen the first trailer for the new James Bond game, check it out below. Looks pretty good, right? Well, there's a bit more packed in that 3 minutes that we can tease out with a bit of digging: so here's 5 things we learned about 007 First Light. 1. Bond has a Backstory As a rule, Bond's backstory is usually pretty muddy. He's a secret agent, after all, and tends to keep his history pretty close to his chest. First Light seems to be taking things pretty closely from Ian Fleming's original novels, with Bond joining the secret service following the deaths of his parents after a mountaineering accident. After a few years in the Navy, and a few too many run-ins with authority, Bond is headhunted by MI6 and begins his journey to become the infamous, charismatic agent we all know today. In First Light, we'll see that process play out and, in some ways, will get to determine what kind of agent this version of Bond is. 007 First Light | Image: IO Interactive 2. Free-Form Gameplay takes Centre Stage… Now, this may not be a surprise to those of us in the know given IO Interactive's pedigree, but 007 First Light is going to feature open-ended, mission-based gameplay. It's a third-person action-adventure, likely in a similar style to IO's Hitman series, where you'll be dropped into 'breathtaking locations' with a goal to accomplish, and decide yourself how you'll proceed. Is your James Bond a silent assassin, keeping to shadows and eliminating guards as they pass his hiding place? Or is he more of a 'shoot first, sneak later' kind of agent? Or, does he aim to keep the body-count low, using gadgets to infiltrate or his natural British charm to bluff his way past potential encounters? I'd honestly think it was just the kind of overpromising many developers are prone to do at a game's announcement, only to reel it back in as you get closer to release, but this is IO Interactive. If any developer can nail the kind of free-form infiltrating a game like this requires, it's the team behind Hitman. I'm very hopeful. 007 First Light | Image: IO Interactive 3. …but Narrative is a Star Player A focus on gameplay doesn't mean the game's story gets thrown to the wayside, though. In First Light, Bond will be tracking down a rogue agent—009, specifically—who, according to MI6, is a master manipulator with an end-game they likely won't see coming. Why send an unproven, unreliable wannabe agent to track down a skilled defector? If 009 is as intelligent as MI6 thinks, they probably know everything the other 00 agents will do to track them down and can avoid them, but Bond is an unknown, a wild card, and likely MI6's best chance at tracking its former agent down. While we don't have much idea of what to expect from the story of 007 First Light, it's clearly going to be a particularly cinematic one, with IO Interactive likely relishing the chance to write a more charismatic and talkative character (no shade to Agent 47, of course). 007 First Light | Image: IO Interactive 4. There are a Ton of Classic Bond Goodies in the Trailer Bond has always been tied to real-world products, from his signature appreciation of cars and watches (especially when they're deadly weapons in their own right) to his love of Vesper Martinis, shaken, not stirred. In the 3 minutes and 14 seconds of trailer footage seen so far, we spotted a whole bunch of Omega watches, including an unreleased model, as well as the fact the man himself is driving an Aston Martin again—probably the Aston Martin V8. These are all undoubtedly geared up to the extreme by Q, with Bond seen accidentally kicking off a hidden thruster on a nearby dirt bike with the press of a button, and are likely to play a key role in the new agent's success in tracking down his mark. I honestly can't wait to cruise around in a Bond car, especially if there are hidden machine guns or something. 5. It's Coming in 2026 While we'll be learning more about the game in the coming months, we know it's set for launch in 2026. And, while it was shown at PlayStation's State of Play, and all the focus was on its launch on Sony's platform, 007 First Light is also coming to Xbox Series S/X, Steam, Epic Games, and the newly-released Nintendo Switch 2. 2026 is already looking pretty stacked for great games, with The Duskbloods, Saros, Onimusha: Way of the Sword, Nioh 3, Fable, and, obviously, Grand Theft Auto 6 set to launch (not to mention a potential Elder Scrolls 6). Now, we've got one more reason to look forward to next year.
