At the end of 2023, I wrote in-depth about the pros and cons of the use of AI in music, including the need for artists’ work to be protected and for copyright laws to be strengthened. over the intervening months, the issues have only become more vivid and pressing.
Last week more than 1,000 musicians and artists, including Kate Bush, Annie Lennox, The Anchoress and many more, released a silent album in protest against the UK government’s proposal to let AI firms train their algorithms on the work of musicians and creative professionals under a new copyright exemption.
The album – This What We Want? – made up of recordings of empty music studios and performance spaces, has been released as musicians and artists warn their livelihoods are under threat from proposed changes to copyright law..The artists say this will “smash a hole in the moral right of creators to present their work” and jeopardise a £126 billion industry that employs 2.4 million people in the UK.
Paul McCartney, recently expressed his concerns around AI: “We[’ve] got to be careful about it because it could just take over and we don’t want that to happen particularly for the young composers and writers [for] who, it may be the only way they[’re] gonna make a career. If AI wipes that out, that would be a very sad thing indeed.”
He has been joined by many more musicians, artists and authors in recent months; who have called for the protection of their work from unlicensed and commercial use by tech companies.”The UK government doesn’t own musicians’ and writers’ intellectual property it can’t just give it away. AI companies must get permission from rights holders, not rely on government policy to bypass copyright law.” Offered singer and artist Rebecca Ferguson on X “This is a private sector issue, not one for the government to dictate.“
The music-free album starkly shows what could happen if these plans happened, Ed Newton-Rex, the composer and former AI executive came up with the idea.
“The government’s proposal would hand the life’s work of the country’s musicians to AI companies, for free, letting those companies exploit musicians’ work to outcompete them,” he said.
“It is a plan that would not only be disastrous for musicians, but that is totally unnecessary: the UK can be leaders in AI without throwing our world-leading creative industries under the bus.”
The government’s AI Opportunities Action Plan. states“The current uncertainty around intellectual property (IP) is hindering innovation and undermining our broader ambitions for AI, as well as the growth of our creative industries,” it continues. “This has gone on too long and needs to be urgently resolved. The EU has moved forward with an approach that is designed to support AI innovation while also enabling rights holders to have control over the use of content they produce. The UK is falling behind.”
Yet writer Andrew Orlowski argues in the Telegraph, that it’s a magical fantasy that stripping artists’ rights will set the economy and AI free to thrive in the UK “In exchange for destroying copyright markets worth some £125bn to the UK, Labour has been promised some magic beans: once artificial intelligence companies are free to effectively steal any British creativity they want & copy it, they will move here and we will be happy again.”
The plan includes alignment with EU AI law where there is “an opt-out” option – where creatives and companies can block their work from being used – this has been heavily criticised as unworkable.
With so many pieces of data, so much music, imagery and text, critics rightly note it would be impossible for every piece of copyrighted text to be protected when it is all automatically opted in from the start.
Max Richter told MPs discussing the proposals that he “strongly opposes the erosion of copyright”. Artists, he said, “must have the right to determine whether to opt in” to any AI model that is being trained on their music and, where they do, “to be properly rewarded for that process”.
Richter explained, that even with the option for rightsholders to opt out by reserving their rights, the new exception is unacceptable. The “effects of scale” make the opt-out “unfair and unworkable”, he continued, adding, “The default assumption should be that artists’ work cannot be used to train AIs unless they choose to opt in”.
“An opt-out system assumes that all material is available for use, which undermines the rights of creators and risks devaluing their work. Striking the right balance between fostering innovation and protecting creators’ intellectual property is crucial,” commented Jill Bainbridge, Head of Intellectual Property at law firm Harper James.
In contrast, Imogen Heap a songwriter who has used AI in her work and who is also involved in the album said “It’s going to be impossible to create a opt out that fits everybody’s needs, what we need is an approach to give granular permission,” she told CH4 news, artists might “be quite happy to have your lyrics trained on if it’s for children’s stories but, you don’t want them used for political slogans, there is so much variety and granularity here. it’s not a simple solution. “
Bainbridge believes it’s the small businesses and independent artists who will suffer most. The logistics of opting out will be more attainable for large creative businesses, which already have legal departments to protect their IP.
Writing in the Guardian, Ed Newton-Rex says Labour’s plan will throw creatives under the bus. “The only upside to upending copyright law in the manner proposed is attracting a few large, foreign AI companies to set up offices here. These are the companies that have been lobbying the government heavily for this change. They are also, incidentally, some of the companies that have ecstatically welcomed the action plan,” he points out.
“This matters because consent is the basis upon which copyright-derived remuneration works. The principle of consent should not be that severely undermined, therefore guardrails, such as requirements for greater transparency from AI developers on the creative works they are being trained on, are needed to ensure the right people are compensated.” Tom Kiehl at UK Music added.
“Far from addressing these challenges, the government’s recent proposals only offer the prospect of transparency from AI companies in exchange for a text and data mining exception to copyright. An exception would water down copyright, negate the need for licences, and equates to using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. “
He continued: “The government is taking a huge risk in betting in favour of a relatively modest domestic AI sector against a creative sector that is generating over £120 billion.”
In a statement, the Creative Rights in AI Coalition said: “It is deeply concerning to see the EU approach looked to as a regime that the UK should mirror. The EU is still working out how to implement its EU AI Act and there are persistent questions over the workability of their opt-out regime. This serves as a real-time warning for the government about imitating regimes that have shown no signs of being effective. The UK should learn from the EU regime’s shortcomings, not blindly imitate it. “
It goes beyond music too with text and journalism under threat from AI reproduction; in response, we have seen recently titles like the Guardian are licensing their content to platforms like OpenAI. The world appears to be heading one way, with tech bros enriching themselves on the backs of work by creatives.
The issue is not so much AI, it is how it is used or misused and regulated. “The UK music industry is a conspicuous British success story and growth area”, Ritchter noted in his speech. “The UK is the second biggest exporter of music in the world, after the US, and the music business contributed £7.6 billion to the UK economy last year, directly employing over 200,000 people.”
A report last year from Jenn Pelly found there are ghost artists, allegedly funded by streaming platforms in order to cut royalty payouts and populate many playlists on Spotify, whose CEO Daniel Ek is worth 7 billion dollars and recently claimed “content” was worth “close to zero“, while further squeezing the royalties of songs with under 1000 streams, and with AI-generated content. Connected to that, you could see the erasure of artists from music for the further gain of a handful of big tech corporations and labels.
There are also big environmental questions about AI and its use that some tech companies do not want to discuss. Such as the amount of energy it takes to power these models. Also, while their investment includes funding for data mining farms, technicians, and AI development, it is not going into the pockets of the creators or artists. Instead, the profits go to their shareholders.
The way that tech bros are mining AI and sacking workforces to boost their own bank balances goes beyond music too, and on social media platforms like X and even at the governmental level, as we are seeing with Elon Musk’s DOGE, gutting government departments. They are potentially laying off workforces and cutting vital programs that could affect dangers like pandemic outbreaks and other programs to pay for tax cuts that perhaps unsurpringly favour those in Musk’s earnings bracket. These are existential and regulatory questions for society and culture.
For society, there will be giant challenges as entire professions could become obsolete by AI systems. How does society cope or does humanity thrive when many more people are unemployed or relying on benefits? Maybe new ways of looking at life or work? Maybe these dystopic concerns are for the future, in the present the way AI is used or misused desperately needs sophisticated regulation and artists need ownership of their IP, as AI innovation challenges the work of humanity.
AI could bring innovation in health and scientific breakthroughs. AI is an evolution in technology: ultimately (like streaming) it will be used by artists and producers to push songwriting, production and creativity, so as a technology, it has its application;, software can be used by artists and creatives to cut time on mundane tasks and augment sounds. But is it an evolution akin to David Bowie‘s cut-up techniques or hip-hop’s use of sampling? The difference is that human beings were involved in using those techniques and new technologies to produce records; AI uses sophisticated algorithms to mimic sounds or voices of artists’ work or likenesses. So these concerns are a real threat to the copyright of artists over their work as we have seen 1000s of songwriters, authors and creatives sound the alarm.
“I am not bothered if large data sets is learning from all works… What I have a problem with is if what comes out is similar and sounds like me, and someone is getting a bunch of money from that and I am not.” Imogen Heap explains. “Every single time there is a new innovation there is always fear… you could go back in history; you could go back to the emergence of the orchestra, electric guitar or synthesisers… I just see incredible amounts of new opportunities, stuff that we can barely imagine right now, if anything any time I experience or play with a new technology it just lightens my creativity, and gets me out of my box of thinking and so I have been working with these companies to develop these tools who are doing the right thing.”
AI also poses the existential question, how much human influence does music need to retain human expression or ‘soul’? Probably a deeper question for every listener or artist. There will undoubtedly be a bigger preponderance of “AI slop” being chucked into the world, you probably already see it on your timelines; soon, you will see it on your playlists and YouTube. Many call this plagiarism rather than anything unique: “AI cannot imagine a future, it can only remix the past.” As American thinker Neil Turkewitz says: “It is incapable of drawing outside the lines. Anything it can generate is derivative, and I don’t mean inspired by the past, but literally a reconfiguration of past expression.”
AI music is based on the work of others, but undoubtedly it will become more sophisticated to the point where you won’t know what is made by AI and what isn’t.
But for me, it’s as much the stories behind the songs and the words, the voices, and the inspiration of human beings that connect me to music. A composition could be impressive technically and sound good, you could enjoy it on one level, it could perform a function, but it will lack that extra dimension if it is solely produced by AI, the human being is the one that makes it unique.
“Music is one of the defining human characteristics,” Max Richter noted in his speech. “All the really important things in life have music woven into them. We have music for getting married, for celebrating a birthday; for learning the alphabet; for graduating school or university; for resisting oppression. From national anthems to lullabies, music is in any place in our lives that matters to us”.
“But all of this will fade into history unless we support creators’ rights” because he notes strong copyright law is what allows creators to make a living from their creativity.
It has been heartening to see the backlash to these proposals from artists and even sections of the mainstream media and there have been signs the government may be softening its position too. But we need to keep the pressure up and action is needed to make sure artists are protected, that they control their intellectual property and determine what is used by AI and what isn’t, and linked to that they are properly recompensed for their work.
As technology advances we have to fight so that 1% of billionaires, major labels, corporations and tech companies are not once again(as has been the story of music) the main beneficiaries of the work of the artist or worst still silences them.
“Think of your favourite artist; the artist that first got you into music when you were a kid,” remarked Richter “Without copyright, the chances are that most of the music you love by them would not exist, because, without a mechanism that rewarded them for their work, they would not have been able to devote their time to making it”.
