Is This What We Want features recordings of empty studios, performance spaces, highlighting danger to creative trade.

Over 1,000 musicians, including Kate Bush, Cat Stevens, and Annie Lennox, have released a silent album to protest proposed changes to British copyright laws regarding artificial intelligence (AI), which they warn could result in legalized music theft.

The album, titled Is This What We Want, was launched on Tuesday and showcases recordings of empty studios and performance spaces, as opposition to the plan increases in the United Kingdom.
The proposed changes would permit AI developers to train their models on any material they have lawful access to, with the requirement for creators to actively opt out to prevent their work from being utilized.
Critics, including the artists involved in the silent album, argue that this would reverse the fundamental premise of copyright law, which grants creators exclusive rights over their work.
The rise of AI has presented a challenge to the creative industry, including music, raising both legal and moral questions about a new technological platform capable of generating content without compensating the originators of that content.
Bush and other creators condemned the proposed legislation in the UK as a “blanket handout” to Silicon Valley in an open letter to The Times newspaper.
Ed Newton-Rex, the project organizer, stated that musicians “are united in their complete rejection” of this misconceived plan.
In a highly unusual move, UK newspapers also voiced their concerns, initiating a campaign with full-page advertisements on the front of nearly every national daily, accompanied by an editorial by the papers’ editors.
A public consultation on the legal changes will conclude later on Tuesday.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer aims for the UK to become a leader in the AI sector. In response to the album, a government spokesperson stated that the existing copyright and AI framework is limiting the creative industries from “reaching their full potential.”