1,000 artists throw the ‘Silent’ album to protest against the copyright of the United Kingdom.

The United Kingdom government is moving forward with the plans to attract more companies to the region through changes in the copyright law that allow developers to train AI models in the content of artists on the Internet , without permission or payment, unless creators “exclude.” However, not everyone goes to the same pace.

On Monday, a group of 1,000 musicians launched a “silent album”, protesting planned changes. The album, entitled “Is this what we want?” – It has clues of Kate Bush, Imogen Heap and the contemporary classic composers Max Richter and Thomas Hewitt Jones, among others. It also presents co-writing credits of more hundredsincluding big names such as Annie Lennox, Damon Albarn, Billy Ocean, The Clash, Mystery Jets, Yusuf / Cat Stevens, Riz Ahmed, Tori Amos and Hans Zimmer.

But this is not a part of 2. And it is not a music collection. On the other hand, artists have gathered recordings of empty studies and performance spaces, a symbolic representation of what they believe will be the impact of the planned changes in the copyright law.

“You can listen to my cats to move,” this is how Hewitt Jones described his contribution to the album. “I have two cats in my study that bother me all day when I’m working.”

To put an even more forceful point in it, the titles of the 12 tracks that make up the album explain a message: “The British government should not legalize musical theft to benefit AI companies.”

The album is only the last movement in the United Kingdom to draw attention to the issue of how copyright is handled in AI training. Similar protests are Ongoing In other markets, such as the USA, highlighting a global concern among artists.

Ed Newton-Rex, who organized the project, has simultaneously leading a larger campaign against the training of the without licenses. TO request It began now has been signed by more than 47,000 writers, visual artists, actors and others in the creative industries, with almost 10,000 of them to register in the last five weeks since the United Kingdom government announced its great AI strategy.

Newton-Rex said it has also been “directing a non-profit organization in AI during the last year, where we have been certifying companies that basically do not scratch and train in a great job without permission.”

Newton-Rex came to advocate the artists after hitting both parties. Classically trained as a composer, he then built a musical composition platform based on the so -called Jukedeck that allows people to avoid the use of copyrights creating their own. Its catchy launch, where it rapped and riffo on the virtues of using AI to write music, won the Startup de TechCrunch Battlefield competition in 2015. Jukedeck was finally acquired by Tiktok, where he worked for some time in music services.

After several years in other technological companies such as Snap and Stability, Newton-Rex has once again considered how to build the future without burning the past. He is contemplating that idea from a quite interesting point of view: now he lives in the Bay area with his wife Alice Newton-Rex, vice president of products at WhatsApp.

The launch of the album comes just before the planned changes in the copyright law in the United Kingdom, which would force artists who do not want their work to use for training purposes of “opting”.

Newton-Rex believes that this effectively creates a lost situation for artists, since there is no exclusion method, or any clear way to track what specific material any AI system has been fed.

“We know that exclusion schemes are not taken,” he said. “This will only give 95% (a) 95% of people’s work to AI companies. That is undoubtedly. “

The solution, says artists, is to produce work in other markets where there could be better protections for it. Hewitt Jones, who threw a work keyboard to a port in Kent in a protest in person not long ago (fished it, later), said he is considering markets as Switzerland for distributing his music in the future.

But the rock and hard place of a port in Kent are nothing compared to the wild west internet.

“We have been told for decades to share our online work because it is good for the exhibition. But now artificial intelligence companies and, incredibly, governments are going around and saying: ‘Well, you put it on free line … “, said Newton-Rex.” So now the artists are just stopping and share their work.

The album will be published widely on music platforms at some point on Tuesday, the organizers said, and any donation or gain of playing it will go to charity help musicians.