Former Beatles member says government should protect creative workers as consultation on copyright continues. Sir Paul McCartney has warned artificial intelligence could “rip off” artists if a proposed overhaul of copyright law goes ahead. The proposals could remove the incentive for writers and artists and result in a “loss of creativity”, he told the BBC.
The use of copyrighted material to help train AI models is the subject of a newly launched government consultation. McCartney, one of the two surviving members of the Beatles, said: “You get young guys, girls, coming up, and they write a beautiful song, and they don’t own it, and they don’t have anything to do with it. And anyone who wants can just rip it off.”.
“The truth is, the money’s going somewhere … Somebody’s getting paid, so why shouldn’t it be the guy who sat down and wrote Yesterday?”. A lack of clarity around whether it is right and fair that copyright material be used to train the models that are powering the latest wave of AI tools has led to debate around the world, with legal cases launched by companies and individuals in the creative industries over what they argue is unlicensed use of their material.
In contrast, some publishing organisations and media outlets have signed licensing deals with AI companies to allow them to use their material to train such models. It is not the first time McCartney has raised fears about the threat AI could pose to the arts. In December, he warned AI could “just take over” and joined the actors Julianne Moore, Stephen Fry and Hugh Bonneville in signing a petition, which states the “unlicensed use of creative works for training generative AI is a major, unjust threat to the livelihoods of the people behind those works, and must not be permitted”.
