Pop legend Paul McCartney will launch a silent music observe subsequent month as a part of a silent album to protest UK copyright legislation modifications that might give exemptions to tech corporations.
Other artists comparable to Hans Zimmer and singer Kate Bush have joined the mission, highlighting what they are saying are the risks synthetic intelligence (AI) poses to the artistic industries.
McCartney’s contribution to the album “Is This What We Want?” will draw “attention to the damning impact on artists’ livelihoods controversial government proposals could cause,” the artists behind the mission mentioned in an announcement.
Called “Bonus Track” it’s a two minute 45 seconds recording of an empty studio that includes a collection of clicks.
More than 1,000 artists, together with Annie Lennox, Damon Albarn and Jamiroquai, have collaborated on the silent album which was first launched in February.
They preserve that the federal government’s legislation modifications “would make it easier to train AI models on copyrighted work without a licence”.
“Under the heavily criticised proposals, UK copyright law would be upended to benefit global tech giants. AI companies would be free to use an artist’s work to train their AI models without permission or remuneration,” they added.
The modifications “would require artists to proactively ‘opt-out’ from the theft of their work – reversing the very principle of copyright law,” they added.
Only 1,000 copies of the vinyl album have been pressed.
In May, some 400 writers and musicians together with Elton John and Bush condemned the proposals as a “wholesale giveaway” to Silicon Valley in a letter to The Times newspaper.
Other signatories included the 83-year-old former-Beatle McCartney, singer-songwriters Ed Sheeran, Dua Lipa and Sting, and writers Kazuo Ishiguro, Michael Morpurgo and Helen Fielding.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer has beforehand mentioned the federal government must “get the balance right” with copyright and AI whereas noting that the expertise represented “a huge opportunity”.
“They have no right to sell us down the river,” Elton John informed the BBC in May, urging Starmer to “wise up” and “see sense”.
According to a examine by UK Music final week two out of three artists and producers concern that AI poses a menace to their careers.
More than 9 out of 10 surveyed demanded that their picture and voice to be protected and referred to as for AI corporations to pay for using their creations.
© 2025 AFP