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New York Times
25-02-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Their Album is Wordless. Will Their Protest Against A.I. Resound?
Sometimes, silence speaks louder than song. That's the hope, at least, for more than 1,000 musicians who released a lyric-less album on Tuesday to protest the British government's proposal to expand the ways that developers can use copyright-protected works to train artificial intelligence models. The album, which was created by artists including Annie Lennox, Billy Ocean, Hans Zimmer and Kate Bush, is not exactly silent: It features recordings of empty studios, which the artists say represent 'the impact we expect the government's proposals would have on musicians' livelihoods.' There are footsteps and rustles — is that a door closing? a page turning? a fly? — but only the most out-there contemporary composers would refer to the sounds as songs. 'Doesn't that silence say it all?' Kate Bush, who contributed to the album, said in a statement, adding, 'If these changes go ahead, the life's work of all the country's musicians will be handed over to A.I. companies for free.' Under the government's proposals, artists would have to opt out, or 'reserve their rights,' to keep their works from being used to train A.I. The window for public comments on the proposal, which is part of a broader government consultation on copyright and artificial intelligence, was set to close Tuesday night. 'Opt-out shifts the burden of controlling your works onto the rights holder,' said Ed Newton-Rex, who organized the album and is the chief executive of Fairly Trained, a nonprofit that certifies generative A.I. companies for the training data they use. 'Basically,' he said, of the current government proposal, 'it flips copyright on its head.' Even as some artists experiment with artificial intelligence, many fear that developers are inappropriately using their work without compensating them. (Publishers and journalists are also concerned: The New York Times has sued OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement of news content related to A.I. systems. OpenAI and Microsoft have denied those claims.) The album — titled 'Is This What We Want?' — has 12 songs, each of which has a one-word title that together spell out the sentence: 'The British government must not legalize music theft to benefit A.I. companies.' Only some of the artists who were part of the album project directly contributed to the audio, Mr. Newton-Rex said, although he said that all shared in the credits. Mr. Newton-Rex and other critics fear that artists may not even know if their work is being used to train the A.I. models. He said that he had previously run opt-out schemes at generative A.I. companies, which he called an 'illusion,' in part because copyrighted work can spread so quickly online that creators can lose control of it. Powerful A.I. developers have repeatedly shown that they are willing to skirt copyright law to train systems. And Britain, desperate to revive its sluggish economy, is aggressively trying to court A.I. developers. Prime Minister Keir Starmer recently said he plans to push Britain to be 'the world leader.' The country has already signaled its willingness to break with the European Union and some of its other allies, like Australia and Canada, in its attitude to the technology. At a recent A.I. summit in Paris, Britain sided with the United States in declining to sign a communiqué calling for A.I. to be 'inclusive and sustainable.' Now, Britain is arguing that a 'competitive copyright regime' is part of what is needed to 'build cutting-edge, secure and sustainable A.I. infrastructure.' The proposals, which were announced late last year, call the current system unclear and say that it is hampering innovation for both A.I. developers and artists. Britain argues that the proposed changes are meant to give artists more control over the way their work is used and more opportunities for payment. In response to a request for comment, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology said that Britain's current copyright structure is holding both artists and A.I. companies back from full innovation. But it also noted that no decisions had been finalized and that it would consider the responses it received before setting out next steps. Britain's consultation process, in which the government asks for public input at the early stages of policy proposals, is designed to take in feedback and often leads to revisions. As the consultation period ended on Tuesday, British artists and publishers released a series of protests. Several newspapers featured identical campaign images across their front pages that read: 'Make it fair: The government wants to change the U.K.'s laws to favor big tech platforms so they can use British creative content.' The musicians Paul McCartney, Elton John and Dua Lipa, the novelist Kazuo Ishiguro and the actor Stephen Fry were among the artists who signed a letter in protest that was published in The Times of London. 'There is no moral or economic argument for stealing our copyright,' the artists wrote. 'Taking it away will devastate the industry and steal the future of the next generation.'
Yahoo
25-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
1,000 artists release 'silent' album to protest UK copyright sell-out to AI
The U.K. government is pushing forward with plans to attract more AI companies to the region through changes to copyright law that would allow developers to train AI models on artists' content on the internet -- without permission or payment -- unless creators proactively 'opt out.' Not everyone is marching to the same beat, though. On Monday, a group of 1,000 musicians released a 'silent album," protesting the planned changes. The album — titled 'Is This What We Want?' — features tracks from Kate Bush, Imogen Heap, and contemporary classical composers Max Richter and Thomas Hewitt Jones, among others. It also features co-writing credits from hundreds more, including big names like Annie Lennox, Damon Albarn, Billy Ocean, The Clash, Mystery Jets, Yusuf / Cat Stevens, Riz Ahmed, Tori Amos, and Hans Zimmer. But this is not Band Aid part 2. And it's not a collection of music. Instead, the artists have put together recordings of empty studios and performance spaces — a symbolic representation of what they believe will be the impact of the planned copyright law changes. 'You can hear my cats moving around,' is how Hewitt Jones described his contribution to the album. 'I have two cats in my studio who bother me all day when I'm working.' To put an even more blunt point on it, the titles of the 12 tracks that make up the album spell out a message: 'The British government must not legalize music theft to benefit AI companies.' The album is just the latest move in the U.K. to bring attention to the issue of how copyright is being handled in AI training. Similar protests are underway in other markets, like the U.S., highlighting a global concern among artists. Ed Newton-Rex, who organized the project, has simultaneously been leading a bigger campaign against AI training without licensing. A petition he started has now been signed by more than 47,000 writers, visual artists, actors, and others in the creative industries, with nearly 10,000 of them signing up in just the last five weeks since the U.K. government announced its big AI strategy. Newton-Rex said he has also been 'running a nonprofit in AI for the last year where we've been certifying companies that basically don't scrape and train on great work without permission.' Newton-Rex arrived at advocating for artists after having batted for both sides. Classically trained as a composer, he later built an AI-based music composition platform called Jukedeck that let people bypass using copyrighted works by creating their own. Its catchy pitch, where he rapped and riffed on the virtues of using AI to write music, won the TechCrunch Startup Battlefield competition in 2015. Jukedeck was eventually acquired by TikTok, where he worked for some time on music services. After several years at other tech companies like Snap and Stability, Newton-Rex is back to considering how to build the future without burning the past. He's contemplating that idea from a pretty interesting vantage point: He now lives in the Bay Area with wife Alice Newton-Rex, VP of product at WhatsApp. The album release comes just ahead of the planned changes to copyright law in the U.K, which would force artists who do not want their work used for AI training purposes to proactively 'opt out." Newton-Rex thinks this effectively creates a lose-lose situation for artists since there is no opt-out method in place, or any clear way of being able to track what specific material has been fed into any AI system. 'We know that opt-out schemes are just not taken up,' he said. 'This is just going to give 90% [to] 95% of people's work to AI companies. That's without a doubt.' The solution, say the artists, is to produce work in other markets where there might be better protections for it. Hewitt Jones — who threw a working keyboard into a harbor in Kent at an in-person protest not long ago (he fished it out, broken, afterwards) — said he's considering markets like Switzerland for distributing his music in the future. But the rock and hard place of a harbor in Kent are nothing compared to the Wild West of the internet. 'We've been told for decades to share our work online because it's good for exposure. But now AI companies and, incredibly, governments are turning around and saying, 'Well, you put that online for free …' Newton-Rex said. 'So now artists are just stopping making and sharing their work. A number of artists have contacted me to say this is what they're doing.' The album will be posted widely on music platforms sometime Tuesday, the organizers said, and any donations or proceeds from playing it will go to the charity Help Musicians.
