Other than the occasional track, like the 1972 single \u201cGive Ireland Back to the Irish,\u201d Paul McCartney isn\u2019t generally associated with topical songs. But he\u2019s changing his tune, so to speak, as part of a new protest by musicians against copyright theft by AI companies.<\/p>\n
Originally released this past February, the album<\/a> Is This What We Want? consisted entirety of background noise taped at recording studios, but no actual voices, songs, or instruments. The project was designed to draw attention to the way AI companies could exploit recorded music, along with other art forms, as the basis for projects, thanks to a proposed change in U.K. copyright law. According to a statement from the album organizers at the time, the record\u2019s use of silence was meant to symbolize \u201cthe impact we expect the government\u2019s proposals would have on musicians\u2019 livelihoods.\u201d<\/p>\n More from Rolling Stone<\/p>\n For the album\u2019s upcoming vinyl release on Dec. 8, McCartney contributed his own blank slate: \u201cBonus Track,\u201d which spans 2 minutes and 45 seconds long of silence.<\/p>\n Speaking to the BBC <\/a>earlier this year, McCartney discussed his concerns about AI infiltrating his business. \u201cYou get young guys and girls coming up, and they write a beautiful song, and they don\u2019t own it,\u201d he said. \u201cThey don\u2019t have anything to do with it, and anyone who wants can just rip it off \u2026 When it gets on the streaming platforms, somebody\u2019s getting [the money], and it should be the person who created it. It shouldn\u2019t just be some tech giant somewhere. Somebody\u2019s getting paid. Why shouldn\u2019t it be the guy who sat down and wrote \u2018Yesterday\u2019?\u201d<\/p>\n Each song on the original digital version of Is This What We Want? had a one-word title, which, when listed in full, spelled out \u201cThe British Government Must Not Legalize Music Theft to Benefit AI Companies.\u201d Among the musicians credited as co-writers are the Clash, Kate Bush, Annie Lennox, Tori Amos, Damon Albarn, composer Hans Zimmer, Billy Ocean, and Yusuf\/Cat Stevens. Profits will go toward the charity Help Musicians.<\/p>\n .<\/p>\n Best of Rolling Stone<\/p>\n Sign up for RollingStone’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Other than the occasional track, like the 1972 single \u201cGive Ireland Back to the Irish,\u201d Paul McCartney isn\u2019t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":298421,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[182,181,507,13501,155536,74,155537],"class_list":{"0":"post-298420","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-paul-mccartney","12":"tag-recording-studios","13":"tag-technology","14":"tag-topical-songs"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298420\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}