Musicians launch silent album in protest against UK’s AI copyright reforms
11 March 2025
Cat Stevens (left) and Kate Bush (right). Images from Wikipedia and People
More than 1,000 musicians, including Kate Bush and Cat Stevens, recently released a silent album to protest proposed changes to Britain’s copyright laws. The new regulations could allow tech firms to use their work to train artificial intelligence (AI) models without permission. Creative industries worldwide are confronting the legal and ethical challenges of AI models that generate content after being trained on popular works – often without compensating the original creators.
“The creative industries took some time to react and probably their voices were not heard regarding AI concerns,” said Benoit Tardy, an IP advisor business advisor at the South-East Asia IP SME Helpdesk. The South-East Asia IP SME Helpdesk is an initiative of the European Commission that supports small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from the European Union (EU) and the other countries of the Single Market Programme (SMP) to both protect and enforce their IP rights in or relating to South-East Asian countries, through the provision of free information and services.
Benoit Tardy I IP advisor business advisor @ South-East Asia IP SME Helpdesk
“I think this is the perfect MarCom strategy to raise awareness both before the UK authorities and also to gain traction from the general audience. The list of artists involved is very huge (1,000) including some very famous names and I am sure even fans may be involved to highlight the issues with AI and creation,” he continued.
“I am not a local UK expert, but this symbolic and collective initiative was launched after the release of a public consultation on Copyright and AI on December 17, 2024,” he added. “From what I understood, the controversial aspect is related to the data mining exception which was suggesting a very broad scope of exceptions to copyright protection. It would apply to data mining for any purpose, including commercial purposes. There is a balance to find between supporting the advancement of technology (AI training models), which is key for the economy of a country, and protecting creativity (mainly human authors).”
Is This What We Want, silent album released by over 1,000 musicians. Image from The Music Universe.
The debate on AI and copyright, as well as patents, is a global issue. The EU responded by swiftly introducing the EU AI Act, which took effect on August 1, 2024. However, the regulation will only be enforced in 2026, and policymakers are currently discussing guidelines alongside the establishment of the European AI Office.
For Asia-Pacific, Tardy said: “It could be interesting to follow what is happening in the UK as several countries follow British common law principles for IP matters. However, local stakeholders and businesses already urged the local authorities to issue regulations on AI. For example, within ASEAN, each country is going at its own pace, such as Singapore (already has the data mining exception for copyright since 2021 and is working on the regulation of AI in various sectors), Thailand (issued the AI Ethics Guidelines and a Royal Decree on AI Operations is being drafted), Malaysia (already has national Guidelines on AI Governance and Ethics), the Philippines (an AI Regulation Act is being drafted) and Indonesia (already has a national AI Strategy).”
- Excel V. Dyquiangco
