McCartney releasing silent tech protest song
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Pop legend Paul McCartney will release a silent music track next month as part of a silent album protesting UK copyright law changes that would give exemptions to tech firms.
Other artists such as Hans Zimmer and Kate Bush have joined the project, highlighting what they say are the dangers artificial intelligence poses to the creative 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 project said in a statement.
Called Bonus Track, it is a two-minute, 45-second recording of an empty studio featuring a series of clicks.
More than 1,000 artists, including Annie Lennox, Damon Albarn and Jamiroquai, have collaborated on the silent album, which was first released in February.
They maintain that the government’s proposed changes “would make it easier to train AI models on copyrighted work without a license.”
“Under the heavily criticized 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 changes “would require artists to proactively ‘opt out’ from the theft of their work — reversing the very principle of copyright law,” they said.
Only 1,000 copies of the vinyl album have been pressed.
In May, some 400 writers and musicians, including Elton John and Bush, condemned the proposals as a “wholesale giveaway” to Silicon Valley in a letter to The Times newspaper.
Other signatories included McCartney, Ed Sheeran, Dua Lipa and Sting, and writers Kazuo Ishiguro, Michael Morpurgo and Helen Fielding.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer has previously said the government needs to “get the balance right” with copyright and AI while noting that the technology represents “a huge opportunity.”
“They have no right to sell us down the river,” Elton John told the BBC in May, urging Starmer to “wise up” and “see sense.”
According to a study by UK Music last week, two out of three artists and producers fear that AI poses a threat to their careers.
More than nine out of 10 surveyed said their image and voice should be protected and called for AI firms to pay for the use of their creations.
