Over 1,000 musicians release silent album to protest AI copyright changes

[midian182]

What just happened? More than 1,000 musicians, including Kate Bush, Tori Amos, and the Eurythmics' Annie Lennox, have released a silent album in protest against proposed changes to Britain's copyright laws. The new rules could allow companies to use artists' work to train their AI models without permission.

The album, called Is This What We Want?, features recordings of empty studios and performance spaces. Organizers say this represents the potential impact on artists' livelihoods, and creativity in general, should the government's plans go ahead.

The UK has put forward proposals that will allow AI companies to train their models on any material to which they have lawful access. Any creators or companies that don't want their work used this way would have to opt out, an option that has been called unfair and unworkable.

Ed Newton-Rex, the British composer and former AI executive behind the album, said, "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."

"It is a plan that would not only be disastrous for musicians, but that is totally unnecessary: the UK can be leaders in AI without throwing our world-leading creative industries under the bus."

The artist responsible for each of the album's 12 silent tracks is uncredited, but more than 1,000 artists are listed as co-writers. It's believed that Kate Bush recorded one of the tracks in her studio.

Bush, whose popularity experienced a revival following the use of her hit Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) in Stranger Things season 4, said, "In the music of the future, will our voices go unheard?"

Other co-writers include Tori Amos, Billy Ocean, the Clash, Blur/Gorillaz's Damon Albarn, and Annie Lennox. The track listings spell out the message: "The British government must not legalise music theft to benefit AI companies."

The album is now available on Spotify. All proceeds go toward Help Musicians, a UK charity supporting current and retired musicians.

Responding to the album, a government spokesperson said the current copyright and AI laws were holding back the creative industries, media and AI sector from "realising their full potential."

"We have engaged extensively with these sectors throughout and will continue to do so. No decisions have been taken," the spokesperson added.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has outlined a strategy to position the UK as a global leader in AI, launching the AI Opportunities Action Plan with key initiatives such as AI Growth Zones, a National Data Library, and a twentyfold increase in supercomputing power by 2030. The plan also aims to integrate AI into public services to boost efficiency.

The government consultation on the copyright law changes closes today. Other protests include several daily newspapers featuring the slogan "Make It Fair" on their front pages. There's also a letter in The Times slamming the proposals, signed by 34 creatives, including film producer Barbara Broccoli, Bridget Jones author Helen Fielding, actor Stephen Fry, composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, and musician Ed Sheeran.

Permalink to story:

Over 1,000 musicians release silent album to protest AI copyright changes

 

[The Talking Tech]

We don't need "silent" singers, we need those singers to start using their voice making a very public outcry contacting Senate Republicans into doing their jobs and taking responsibility in getting a legislation started.

 

[Tempus]

This is one thing I don't understand about the AI learning process. Writers and musicians have been reading/listening to others since the beginning of time and influenced by those other creators. Bach is a classic example of taking music from others and enhancing it to be a new composition so what makes AI doing the same thing so bad? If I read a bunch of submarine action books and then write my own that was strongly influenced by those I've read, how does that make me better than AI doing it?

If the training content is free for me to consume and be influenced by, why not an LLM?

 

[yRaz]

This is one thing I don't understand about the AI learning process. Writers and musicians have been reading/listening to others since the beginning of time and influenced by those other creators. Bach is a classic example of taking music from others and enhancing it to be a new composition so what makes AI doing the same thing so bad? If I read a bunch of submarine action books and then write my own that was strongly influenced by those I've read, how does that make me better than AI doing it?

If the training content is free for me to consume and be influenced by, why not an LLM?

The problem is that the artists, who previously got paid, are being replaced by low quality garbage that companies don't have to pay for.

 

[The Talking Tech]

This is one thing I don't understand about the AI learning process. Writers and musicians have been reading/listening to others since the beginning of time and influenced by those other creators. Bach is a classic example of taking music from others and enhancing it to be a new composition so what makes AI doing the same thing so bad? If I read a bunch of submarine action books and then write my own that was strongly influenced by those I've read, how does that make me better than AI doing it?

If the training content is free for me to consume and be influenced by, why not an LLM?

What part of A.I not being a human you don't understand.

Humans taking inspiration from others to motivate and innovative creativity... A.I on the other hand is consuming everything (literally) what others have done and turning it into a synthetic result.

You must be very young or very naive not to understand such an attack on human creativity.

 

[Dreadcthulhu]

Somebody call up the estate of John Cage, releasing a silent album like that seems like a blatant rip-off of his famous 4'33" musical composition. Committing copyright infringement like that seems like a poor way to protest AI copyright infringement.

 

[mgwerner]

The problem is that the artists, who previously got paid, are being replaced by low quality garbage that companies don't have to pay for.

Your reply erroneously presumes that the output of current artists is not "low quality garbage" already. It mostly is.

 

[unoficialoficial]

Is it cheating or is it fair to not use dry vocals in the songs?

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Wouldn't it make more sense to put out an album of strange noises, which acts as a poison pill for any AI that trains on it?

 

[Dreadcthulhu]

Wouldn't it make more sense to put out an album of strange noises, which acts as a poison pill for any AI that trains on it?

Well, the people deciding which data to train the AI may actively look for such poisoned training data & exclude it from the training set, and even if they miss it a small number of purposefully bad albums won't outweigh the rest of the normal albums.

 

[Geoplex]

This is one thing I don't understand about the AI learning process. Writers and musicians have been reading/listening to others since the beginning of time and influenced by those other creators. Bach is a classic example of taking music from others and enhancing it to be a new composition so what makes AI doing the same thing so bad? If I read a bunch of submarine action books and then write my own that was strongly influenced by those I've read, how does that make me better than AI doing it?

If the training content is free for me to consume and be influenced by, why not an LLM?

There are two ways I would respond to this:
1. In a world where AI companies can freely extract human work in order to create systems which outcompete them, what is the economic value of human creative work? The answer is very little, which means very little will be made. So we must ask ourselves if we would prefer that the art and media we consume is made by machine, or by people with experiences.

2. Listening to every piece of human music ever created is simply not how humans learn to make music. It isn't even related. I don't think the "it's just like human inspiration" analogies are particularly well-founded or reasonable.

Laws should adapt to technology. Before we had the ability to store music, we had no laws which related to the storage of music.

 

[Geoplex]

Your reply erroneously presumes that the output of current artists is not "low quality garbage" already. It mostly is.

Much like generative AI systems, I presume you have personally consumed the current output of human artists in its entirety?

 

[CBTex]

If these musicians fear that the AI training will lead to AI generated music, isn't the solution to just make better music than AI? Most people vastly prefer human generated content. Look at how people enjoy live music over studio recorded music, which is technically higher fidelity. Humans will always prefer human generated content as long as that content is unique and moving. Can't be cranking out the same old cookie garbage that's indiscernible from AI content.

 

[Tempus]

What part of A.I not being a human you don't understand.

Humans taking inspiration from others to motivate and innovative creativity... A.I on the other hand is consuming everything (literally) what others have done and turning it into a synthetic result.

You must be very young or very naive not to understand such an attack on human creativity.

Doesn't really matter to me who creates something that I like. People have done it 100% up to this point only because there wasn't any alternative. If its good (which it isn't right now but then again neither is most human made music/books/art these days) then what difference does it make in the end. Are you saying even if some AI eventually created a piece of art that really moved you, you would deny it or denigrate it?

 

[Tempus]

There are two ways I would respond to this:
1. In a world where AI companies can freely extract human work in order to create systems which outcompete them, what is the economic value of human creative work? The answer is very little, which means very little will be made. So we must ask ourselves if we would prefer that the art and media we consume is made by machine, or by people with experiences.

2. Listening to every piece of human music ever created is simply not how humans learn to make music. It isn't even related. I don't think the "it's just like human inspiration" analogies are particularly well-founded or reasonable.

Laws should adapt to technology. Before we had the ability to store music, we had no laws which related to the storage of music.

Your reply erroneously presumes that the output of current artists is not "low quality garbage" already. It mostly is.

This is a bit what I am thinking. As a rule, we no longer get quality out of todays 'artists'. It seems to me the peak of human creativity has passed and we have entered a stage of endless mediocrity. Jeezie, half the crap today is just sampled stuff from the past. I'd rather have machine created content with the hope that something new comes of it than the junk of today.

 

[mgwerner]

Doesn't really matter to me who creates something that I like. People have done it 100% up to this point only because there wasn't any alternative. If its good (which it isn't right now but then again neither is most human made music/books/art these days) then what difference does it make in the end. Are you saying even if some AI eventually created a piece of art that really moved you, you would deny it or denigrate it?

Not exactly. People have taken inspiration for millennia from nature's creation. Vivaldi's Four Seasons springs to mind. Other than that, your point is valid.

 

[Kirby1]

We don't need "silent" singers, we need those singers to start using their voice making a very public outcry contacting Senate Republicans into doing their jobs and taking responsibility in getting a legislation started.

Had you read the article, perhaps you would understand that this is happening in the UK, not the US.

In the US, AI generated content cannot be copyrighted.


Also, people here seem to want to believe that AI generated music is bad. They are wrong, AI generated music is extremely competent.
I just generated a song with the prompt "Latin guitar with a beat" and nothing else and got this: https://aimusic.so/music/6081787-Fuego-en-Mi-Corazón

I don't speak Spanish so I can't comment on the lyrics, but there is no way I would know that was AI generated if I heard it with no knowledge of its source.

 

[sreams]

We don't need "silent" singers, we need those singers to start using their voice making a very public outcry contacting Senate Republicans into doing their jobs and taking responsibility in getting a legislation started.

What are Senate Republicans going to do about a problem that exists in Britain?

 

[AnilD]

The fact that artists have to opt out instead of giving explicit consent shows how skewed the system is toward tech companies over creators. It should be the other way around.

It’s also wild that some of the most iconic musicians of the past few decades feel the need to fight just to keep control of their own work. If they’re struggling, what chance do smaller artists have?

 

[billc]

This is one thing I don't understand about the AI learning process. Writers and musicians have been reading/listening to others since the beginning of time and influenced by those other creators. Bach is a classic example of taking music from others and enhancing it to be a new composition so what makes AI doing the same thing so bad? If I read a bunch of submarine action books and then write my own that was strongly influenced by those I've read, how does that make me better than AI doing it?

If the training content is free for me to consume and be influenced by, why not an LLM?

The problem is that they can't come up with original stuff, because they can't think; and if there is no original stuff to train them on, then game over.

 

[GetReal]

Had you read the article, perhaps you would understand that this is happening in the UK, not the US.

In the US, AI generated content cannot be copyrighted.


Also, people here seem to want to believe that AI generated music is bad. They are wrong, AI generated music is extremely competent.
I just generated a song with the prompt "Latin guitar with a beat" and nothing else and got this: https://aimusic.so/music/6081787-Fuego-en-Mi-Corazón

I don't speak Spanish so I can't comment on the lyrics, but there is no way I would know that was AI generated if I heard it with no knowledge of its source.

Just listening to the instrumentation itself, it sounds horribly off (especially at the beginning.) Lyrics aside, it sounds like it's being done by some incompetent amateur or AI. This isn't passable as human-made, and that's, once again, without the vocals.

 

[GetReal]

This is a bit what I am thinking. As a rule, we no longer get quality out of todays 'artists'. It seems to me the peak of human creativity has passed and we have entered a stage of endless mediocrity. Jeezie, half the crap today is just sampled stuff from the past. I'd rather have machine created content with the hope that something new comes of it than the junk of today.

You see, your (bad) opinion doesn't outweigh the facts or the rights that people have to create art without having it blatantly stolen and reused. Quality music is ALWAYS being made. If you listen to garbage music, I guess that's on you? Perhaps you have an extremely shallow view of what good music is, but if you think--and I quote-- "half the crap today is just sampled stuff from the past", then you listen to Top 40 and apparently that's it. Ah yes. A couple hundred songs is absolutely half the crap today" when hundreds (if hot thousands) of songs are being put out daily. Perhaps you're just too lazy to event attempt to look.

Also, those people having their art reused and sampled legally? They're getting paid for it. Your comparison of AI to people sampling today is just as bad as your take.

 

[Kirby1]

Just listening to the instrumentation itself, it sounds horribly off (especially at the beginning.) Lyrics aside, it sounds like it's being done by some incompetent amateur or AI. This isn't passable as human-made, and that's, once again, without the vocals.

Cool story bro. I think you're full of it, it sounds completely normal.

 

[Gars]

AI: cool, more free garbage to learn to do my stuff even better

 

[Raskakoochy]

Had you read the article, perhaps you would understand that this is happening in the UK, not the US.

In the US, AI generated content cannot be copyrighted.


Also, people here seem to want to believe that AI generated music is bad. They are wrong, AI generated music is extremely competent.
I just generated a song with the prompt "Latin guitar with a beat" and nothing else and got this: https://aimusic.so/music/6081787-Fuego-en-Mi-Corazón

I don't speak Spanish so I can't comment on the lyrics, but there is no way I would know that was AI generated if I heard it with no knowledge of its source.

I'm Cuban. I listened to it, the instrumental was very good, the lyrics were average, generic. Most wouldn't catch that it's AI if you put it on a Hispanic radio station.