Queen’s Brian May claims “nobody will be able to afford to make music” if “monstrously arrogant” tech companies continue under UK government’s AI copyright rules

nme.com:

Queen‘s Brian May has put forth his opinion in the ongoing discourse around AI in music.On Tuesday (February 25), over 1,000 artists including Damon Albarn, Kate Bush and Annie Lennox released a silent album in protest of planned changes to copyright AI laws planned by the UK government.The effort comes as the UK government is planning to make changes to copyright laws – making it easier for artificial intelligence platforms to develop and train their models using copyrighted work, without needing a license.They would be allowed to use material online without respecting copyright if doing so for “text or data mining”.

This would be allowed unless the rights holders chose to “opt-out”.May is the latest to join the protest – specifically, as part of a campaign by Daily Mail, as their latest report on it features the guitarist sharing his opinion on the matter.“My fear is that it’s already too late – this theft has already been performed and is unstoppable, like so many incursions that the monstrously arrogant billionaire owners of Al and social media are making into our lives.

The future is already forever changed,” May told Daily Mail.“But I applaud this campaign to make the public aware of what is being lost.

I hope it succeeds in putting a brake on, because if not, nobody will be able to afford to make music from here on in.”In 2023, May sounded the alarm on what he thought is a “massively scary” presence of AI in music.“I think by this time next year the landscape will be completely different.