More than 1,000 musicians record ‘silent album’ to protest plans to let AI use their music

25 February 2025, 19:13

Hans Zimmer, Anna Lapwood and the Kanneh-Masons have joined more than 1,000 other artists and musicians to release a silent album protesting “music theft” that will benefit AI companies.

More than 1,000 artists and musicians, from composers including Max Richter to choirs from The King’s Singers to Voces8, have released a silent album in protest against the UK government’s plans to change copyright law to benefit AI companies.

The proposed changes would allow developers to train AI models on artists’ content found online, without permission or payment, unless creators explicitly ‘opt out’.

Classical artists who have contributed to the album – titled Is This What We Want? – include Alexis Ffrench, Amelia Warner, Anne Dudley, Esther Abrami, John Powell, John Rutter, John Wilson, Julian Lloyd Webber, Lorne Balfe, Max Richter, Murray Gold, Rachel Portman, The Royal Albert Hall and Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, The King’s Singers, Thomas Hewitt-Jones and Voces8.

Campaigner Ed Newton-Rex, who organised the project, said the album features “almost silence”. A collection of 12 ‘tracks’, the album features recordings of empty studios and performance spaces – a symbolic representation of what the artists believe will be the impact of the planned copyright law changes.

The titles also spell out a message across the album: ‘The British government must not legalize music theft to benefit AI companies’.

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Thomas Hewitt Jones described his contribution to the album, saying: “You can hear my cats moving around. I have two cats in my studio who bother me all day when I’m working.”

The art of silence has played an important role in music history. In 1952, the American experimental composer John Cage famously wrote a work of ‘silence’ titled 4’33”, which consists of four minutes and 33 seconds of silence, encouraging the audience instead to tune into the ambient noise around them, and question the concept of silence.

Alongside this album, Newton-Rex has been leading a bigger campaign against AI training without licensing. A petition he started has been signed by over 47,000 people in creative industries.

“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,” he said.

“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.”