The British government is urging plans to gain more AI companies through changes in the copyright that would enable developers to train AI models for artist content on the Internet -without permission or payment -unless the Creator “phone call” . However, not everyone marches to the same clock.
On Monday, a group of 1,000 musicians released a “quiet album” that protests The planned changes. The album – with the title “Is what we want?” – Traces of Kate Bush, Imogen Heap and contemporary classic composers Max Richter and Thomas Hewitt Jones. It also contains co-credits from credits from Hundreds moreIncluding 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 band aid part 2. And it is not a music collection. Instead, the artists have put together recordings of empty studios and performance rooms – a symbolic presentation of what their opinion will be the effects of the planned changes in copyright law.
“You can hear how my cats move,” as Hewitt Jones described his contribution to the album. “I have two cats in my studio that bother me all day when I work.”
In order to put an even more blunt point on it, the titles of the 12 tracks that make up the album are a message: “The British government must not legalize the theft to use AI companies.”
The album is only the latest step in the UK to direct the question of how copyright in AI training is treated. Similar protests Are in progress In other markets, such as in the USA, it highlighted a global problem among the artists.
ED Newton-Rex, who organized the project, also led a larger campaign against AI training without licensing. A petition It has now been signed by more than 47,000 writers, visual artists, actors and others in the creative industry. In the past five weeks since the British government was announced, almost 10,000 of them have registered their large AI strategy.
Newton-Rex said he has also “conducted a non-profit organization in AI since last year, in which we have certified companies that basically do not scratch and train a great job without permission”.
Newton-Rex competed to work for artists after fighting for both sides. He was classically trained as a composer and later built an AI-based music composition platform called Jukedeck, with which people could handle copyrighted works by creating their own. His catchy pitch, where he knocked and reefed the virtues of the use of AI to write music, won the TechCrunch -Startup Battlefield competition in 2015. Jukheck was at some point acquired by Tiktokwhere he worked on music services for some time.
After several years at other tech companies such as Snap and Stability, Newton-Rex is thinking about how to build the future without burning the past. He is considering this idea from a rather interesting point of view: he now lives in the Bay Area with Ms. Alice Newton-Rex, VP from Product at WhatsApp.
The publication of album is shortly before the planned changes to the Copyright Act in Great Britain, which would force artists who do not want to use their work for AI training purposes proactive “out out out. “”
Newton-Rex believes that this effectively creates a situation for loose-free for artists, since there is no opt-out method or a clear way to track down certain material in a AI system.
“We know that opt-out programs are simply not being recorded,” he said. “This will only (AN) give 95% of the work of people to AI companies. That is without a doubt. “
The solution, say the artists, is to produce works in other markets in which there could be better protective measures for this. Hewitt Jones, who recently thrown a functioning keyboard into a port in Kent in a personal protest in Kent (he fished afterwards)-said that he is considering markets like Switzerland for the distribution of his music in the future.
But the rock and the hard place of a port in Kent are nothing compared to the Wilder West of the Internet.
“We said for decades that we should share our work online because it is good for exposure. But now AI companies and incredible governments are turning and saying: “Well, they put it online for free …” said Newton-Rex. “Now artists just stop doing their work and sharing. A number of artists contacted me to say that they do this. “
The album will be released on music platforms at some point on Tuesday, according to the organizers, and all donations or revenue from playing are helped to help the charity organization.
