1,000 artists release ‘silent’ album to protest UK copyright sell-out to AI

The U.K. government wants to move full steam ahead on big plans to use and build AI across the country, but not everyone is marching to the beat of its drum. On Monday, a group of 1,000 musicians released a “silent album”, in protest of planned changes to copyright law — changes the artists say will make it easier to train AI on copyrighted work, without licensing (nor paying for) it. The album — titled “Is This What We Want?” — features tracks from Kate Bush, contemporary classical composers Max Richter and Thomas Hewitt Jones, and Imogen Heap, among others, with co-writing credits from hundreds more, including big names like Annie Lennox, Damon Albarn, Billy Ocean, The Clash, Mystery Jets, Yusuf / Cat Stevens, Riz Ahmed, Tori Amos, and Hans Zimmer. But this is not Band Aid part 2. And it’s not a collection of music. Instead, the artists have put together recordings of empty studios and performance spaces — a symbolic representation of what they believe will be the impact of the pl ... Read full article.