1,000 musicians including Kate Bush and Gorillaz’ Damon Albarn protest government’s AI plans with silent album

More than 1,000 musicians are protesting the UK government’s proposed plans to allow artificial intelligence tools to train using copyrighted materials without permission by releasing a silent album.

The Is This What We Want? campaign presents their message with a 12-“track” album of symbolic recordings of vacant studios and performance halls with song titles that form the statement: “The British government must not legalise music theft to benefit AI companies”. Among the 1,000-plus signees are: Damon Albarn, Kate Bush, Jamiroquai, Max Richter, Annie Lennox, New Order, Mr. Scruff, Pet Shop Boys, Hans Zimmer, Imogen Heap, Emma-Jean Thackray, Låpsley, Nigel Godrich, Tori Amos, Yusuf, Zero7 and Riz Ahmed. All profits from the album will be donated to Help Musicians UK. 

“In late 2024, the UK government proposed changing copyright law to allow artificial intelligence companies to build their products using other people’s copyrighted work — music, artworks, text, and more — without a licence”, the campaign website reads. “The musicians on this album came together to protest this. The album consists of recordings of empty studios and performance spaces, representing the impact we expect the government’s proposals would have on musicians’ livelihoods.”

Artists would have to take the step of opting-out of AI training inclusion in the system presented by the government’s proposal, according to Music Week.

“The government’s proposal would hand the life’s work of the country’s musicians to AI companies, for free, letting those companies exploit musicians’ work to outcompete them”, album organiser Ed Newton-Rex said in a press statement. “It is a plan that would not only be disastrous for musicians, but that is totally unnecessary: the UK can be leaders in AI without throwing our world-leading creative industries under the bus. This album shows that, however the government tries to justify it, musicians themselves are united in their thorough condemnation of this ill-thought-through plan.”

Kate Bush’s official website has been updated to display a personal statement and video to show her support with the Is This What We Want? campaign. “Each track on this album features a deserted recording studio. Doesn’t that silence say it all?” she wrote. “Please help protect the music makers and our heartfelt work. We make it for you, not for it to be taken and used against us. In the music of the future, will our voices go unheard?

Is This What We Want? launches alongside the cross-creative industries Make It Fair campaign to raise awareness about the “existential threat” the government’s AI proposals mean for the arts and intellectual property protection. 

Earlier this month, Max Richter gave evidence to the Culture, Media and Sport and Science, Innovation and Technology select committees that the government’s new AI-training copyright proposals would be “unfair and unworkable” for artists. (A December 2024 study reported musicians and music sector workers could lose 25% of income to AI in the next four years.) 

In January, the Suno AI CEO Mikey Shulman said on a venture capital podcast that people “don’t enjoy” making music. 

Last June, several record labels and music industry groups sued AI companies Suno and Udio for alleged copyright infringement and exploitation.

Read the Is This What We Want? campaign’s statement in full here, and find the protest album below.