Sir Elton John has called on the government to rethink proposals involving the relaxation of copyright rules in the hope of protecting creative talent from AI.
The singer and songwriter is among a growing list of public figures to express concerns about plans that would allow tech firms to use online material, including creative work, for AI without permission.
Under current government proposals, creators would need to opt out of their work being used, however some of the campaign’s advocates, including Simon Cowell and the author Kate Mosse, have called for an opt-in system to be put in place.
“We only achieved that success with the backing of our longstanding copyright protection – the world’s gold standard,” John told the Daily Mail, while highlighting the industry’s impact on creating jobs and economic growth.
“The music community has always been quick to adopt new technologies … but adoption of this copyright exception would destroy the UK’s leadership that has been hard won, and what’s worse, it would give it all away. For nothing.”
Last month, John backed Paul McCartney in criticising a proposed overhaul of the UK copyright system, and has called for new rules to prevent tech companies from riding “roughshod over the traditional copyright laws that protect artists’ livelihoods”.
Similarly, Cowell said a failure to regulate AI properly risked artists and people working behind the scenes “being wiped out”.
“The thought that anyone would believe they have the right to blindly give this country’s creative ideas away – for nothing – is just wrong,” he wrote in the Mail. “I passionately care about people’s personal creativity – and AI shouldn’t be able to steal the talent of those humans who created the magic in the first place.
“Anyone who is able to create something they passionately care about deserves to have their work protected.”
Other figures supporting the campaign include the singer-songwriter Joan Armatrading and the Bafta-winning composer Nick Foster.
Many figures in the music world have spoken out about AI’s threat to creativity, with artists including Billie Eilish and Stevie Wonder signing an open letter last year calling for protections against the predatory use of artificial intelligence.
The letter, issued by the Artist Rights Alliance advocacy group, broadly called for tech companies to pledge not to develop AI tools that could replace or undermine human songwriters and artists. Separately, Nick Cave called lyrics written by ChatGPT “a grotesque mockery of what it is to be human” in 2023.
However, Daniel Bedingfield took the opposite view, and called AI the future of music. “AI is now here for ever,” he said last year. “And so I think that there will be two paths: there’ll be the neo-luddite path, and then there’ll be everyone else, most of the planet, who thinks the music’s really good and enjoys it.”
