Music icon Sir Paul McCartney has become the latest artist to join the track list of a silent album protesting unfair AI practices in entertainment organised by former Stability AI lead Ed Newton-Rex.
Is This What We Want is a silent album initially released in February consisting entirely of silent tracks with artists including Damon Albarn, Kate Bush and Hans Zimmer attaching their names to the project to protest the UK government’s proposed plan to eliminate copyright protections for creative works in the case of AI training.
McCartney has become the latest artist to join the project, with the former Beatles star providing a bonus track of silence for the vinyl edition of the record.
“We’re incredibly grateful to Paul McCartney for providing a new (silent) bonus track for the vinyl edition and to the many UK musicians involved in the album,” wrote Newton-Rex in a social media post.
“The track list spells out a simple message: “The British Government Must Not Legalise Music Theft To Benefit AI Companies”. All profits go to the fantastic charity Help Musicians.”
Newton-Rex was a senior employee at London-based AI unicorn Stability, where he led the firm’s audio team.
He resigned in 2023 over the company’s stance on using copyrighted information to train its AI models and has since become one of the leading voices in fair practices regarding AI and copyright.
Newton-Rex founded the non-profit Fairly Trained, which advocates for such practices among AI firms.
Read more: Most generative AI models likely ‘illegal’, says former Stability VP
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