Sometimes, the silence talks stronger than the song.
This is the hope, at least, for more than 1,000 musicians who have released an album without text on Tuesday to protest against the British government’s proposal to expand the ways in which developers can use works protected from copyright 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 presents recordings of empty studies, which the artists support represent “the impact that we expect that the proposals of the government would have had “means of subsistence on the musicians.”
There are steps and rustle: is it a closure of the door? A page that runs? A Moscow? -But only the most contemporary composers outside referred to sounds as songs.
“That silence doesn’t say everything?” Kate Bush, who contributed to the album, said in a declaration, adding: “If these changes go on, the work of the life of all the country’s musicians will be delivered free of charge to artificial intelligence companies”.
According to government proposals, artists should give up or “reserve their rights”, to prevent their works from being used to form the window for public comments on the proposal, which is part of a wider government consultation on copyright e Artificial Intelligence would have closed on Tuesday evening.
“Opt-Out moves the burden of checking your works on the right holder”, said and Newton-Rex, who organized the album and is CEO of Equaly Trashed, a non-profit organization that certifies intelligence company artificial for training data they use.
“Basically,” he said, of the current government proposal, “he turns the copyright in his head”.
Although some artists experience artificial intelligence, many fear that developers are using their work inappropriately without compensating them. (Publishers and journalists are also worried: the New York Times has sued Openai and Microsoft for violation of the copyright of the news related to artificial intelligence systems. Openai and Microsoft have denied these statements.)
The album – entitled “is what we want?” -The 12 songs, each of which has a title of a single word that together explains the phrase: “The British government must not legalize the theft of music for the benefit of artificial intelligence companies”.
Only some of the artists who were part of the album project contributed directly to the audio, said Newton-Rex, although he said everyone shared the credits.
Mr. Newton-Rex and other critics fear that artists may not even know if their work is used to train the AI models. He said he had previously managed Ott-Out schemes at generative artificial intelligence companies, which he called “illusion”, in part because the work protected by copyright can spread so quickly online that creators can lose control of it.
Powerful artificial intelligence developers have repeatedly shown that they are willing to circumvent the copyright law to form the systems. And Great Britain, desperate to revive its slow economy, is aggressively trying to woo artificial intelligence developers. Prime Minister Keir Starmer recently declared that he wanted to push Britain to be “the world leader”.
The country has already reported its will to break with the European Union and some of its other allies, such as Australia and Canada, in its attitude towards technology. In a recent artificial intelligence summit in Paris, Great Britain took sides with the United States in refusing to sign a press release asking that the IA was “inclusive and sustainable”.
Now, the government is claiming that a “competitive copyright regime” is part of what is necessary to “build cutting -edge artificial intelligence infrastructures, safe and sustainable”. The proposals, which have been announced at the end of last year, call the current system unclear and affirm that it is hindering innovation for both artificial intelligence developers and artists. The government claims that the proposed changes aim to give artists greater control over the way they are used their job and more payment opportunities.
In response to a request for comment, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology have said that the current Copyright structure of Great Britain is retaining both artists and artificial intelligence companies with full innovation. But he also noticed that no decision had been finalized and that he would take into consideration the answers received before establishing the next steps.
The British consultation process, in which the government asks for public inputs in the early stages of political proposals, is designed to take feedback and often leads to reviews.
With the end of the consultation period, British artists and publishers have published a series of protests. Several newspapers presented identical images of the campaign in their fronts that read: “Rendi fair: the government wants to change the laws of the United Kingdom to encourage large technological platforms so that 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 for protest that was published on the Times of London.
“There is no moral or economic topic for the theft of our copyright,” the artists wrote. “Bringing it via Devaster the industry and steal the future of the next generation.”