1000 Musicians Release A Silent Album To Protest UK AI Law

More than 1,000 artists have joined to release a silent album titled, ‘Is This What We Want?,’ as a form of protest against a proposed UK AI law to give tech companies permission to use copyrighted material to help train AI models until the creators explicitly opt-out.

In December 2024, the center-left Labour Party government proposed enabling AI developers easy access to high-quality creative content with the intention of furthering the country’s progress on AI technology.

Kate Bush, Annie Lennox, Cat Stevens, Damon Albarns, and many lesser-known artists have joined forces to record the almost silent album organized by composer and AI developer Ed Newton-Rex. Consisting of 12 tracks with titles spelling out “The British government must not legalize music theft to benefit AI companies,” the recordings of empty studios and performance spaces “symbolize what we expect will happen if the government’s proposals go through.”

“It’s a mix of artists that everyone’s heard of and, you know,” Newton-Rex told the Associated Press. “And many musicians who are not household names. And I think that’s really important because this issue is going to affect all of us.”

The AI developer criticizes the proposal for weakening copyright protections and threatening the livelihood of artists. “The government’s proposal would hand the life’s work of the country’s musicians to AI companies, for free, letting those companies exploit musicians’ work to outcompete them,” Newton-Rex said.

“It is a plan that would not only be disastrous for musicians, but that is totally unnecessary.”

Publishers, artists’ organizations, and media companies have joined hands to oppose the attempt to throw the country’s “world-leading creative industries under the bus.” The proposal also received intense backlash from musicians and artist communities.

Paul McCartney, one of the two surviving members of the Beatles, reacted to the proposed change in a BBC interview and stressed that it would create a “Wild West” where copyrights are not properly protected. “You get young guys, girls, coming up, and they write a beautiful song, and they don’t own it,” he said. “They don’t have anything to do with it, and anyone who wants can just rip it off.”

He shared that being in the Beatles not only allowed him to work on a job he loved but also paid the bills, and the proposals would threaten musicians’ livelihood and lead to a “loss of creativity.”

"The truth is, the money's going somewhere. Somebody's getting paid, so why shouldn't it be the guy who sat down and wrote ‘Yesterday’?"

The British government has stated that it was working on delivering legal certainty through a copyright regime that would protect the interests of “both AI developers and right holds” while finding a way to allow “both to thrive.”

Source: Associated Press