Artists release silent album in protest at AI copyright proposals

25/2/2025 12:04

More than 1,000 musicians including Kate Bush and Cat Stevens on Tuesday released a silent album to protest proposed changes to Britain's copyright laws which could allow tech firms to train artificial intelligence models using their work.



Creative industries globally are grappling with the legal and ethical implications of AI models that can produce their own output after being trained on popular works without necessarily paying the creators of the original content.



Britain, which Prime Minister Keir Starmer wants to become an AI superpower, has proposed relaxing laws that currently give creators of literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works the right to control the ways their material may be used.



The proposed changes would allow AI developers to train their models on any material to which they have lawful access, and would require creators to proactively opt out to stop their work being used.



The changes have been heavily criticised by many artists, who say it would reverse the principle of copyright law, which grants exclusive control to creators for their work.