Elton John: A.I. copyright changes are "criminal" — "committing theft" from artists.

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It's been a very long time since I've praised Elton John ...

.... okay, in truth I've never praised the bald, bland, over-played jingle-maker.

But this morning, I come to praise Mr John, not to berate him.

The issue is so-called artificial intelligence (AI). And the rights of "content creators," from whose content the "learning models" steal without either attribution or payment.

The US is facing what Trump calls a "Big Beautiful Bill" that will add a staggering $3.8 trillion to the national debt. It also includes a 10-year exemption from regulation for artificial intelligence (AI)— a "safe harbour [that] would give Big Tech another free ride on the backs of artists, authors, consumers, all of us and our children." (No coincidence that Trump fired Shira Perlmutter, the Register of Copyrights, "less than a day after she refused to rubber-stamp Elon Musk’s efforts to mine troves of copyrighted works to train AI models." This, just after the Copyight Office finalised their report they've been making for 2+ years, concluding that Generative AI trained on Copyrighted works is probably NOT "Fair Use." )

Similar legal protection for theft of copyrighted works is being introduced in the UK, where Elton John has (correctly) branded proposed AI copyright changes there as "criminal" and accused officials (again, correctly) of "committing theft" from artists.

Should the government proceed with the plans allowing AI firms to use artists' content without paying, they would be "committing theft, thievery on a high scale," the music legend said.

He's right, you know. Exempting 'Big Tech' from complying with copyright law simply hands the creative output of every individual to AI companies.

For free.

"The danger is for young artists, they haven't got the resources to keep checking or fight big tech," John said in a BBC interview on Sunday. "It's criminal and I feel incredibly betrayed."

Betrayed because he supported Starmer on the back promises to support young musicians. Still, it's the first time I've felt sympathy for the world-class purveyor of middle-class muzak. Because even tedious tunes best used for sleep still need to be written by someone before they'e copied by a prowling plagiarising-information-synthesis system (PISS) — and, if the plagiarising process is legalised, then every creator's work becomes fair game for misappropriation,

John's statements come in response to a controversial proposal that would ease copyright laws in the country, allowing AI developers to train models on any creative works to which they [currently] have lawful access. ...

Concerns around artist permission and compensation guarantees have brought John alongside an alliance of artists to gather support in an open letter to help warn of how the government's planned changes could affect creators.

The artists are calling on Prime Minister Keir Starmer to back amendments filed by Baroness Beeban Kidron over the so-called Data (Use and Access) Bill, citing an urgent need for "transparency over the copyright works ingested by AI models."

The open letter was signed by notable figures like Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton, Kazuo Ishiguro, Ed Sheeran, and Dua Lipa, along with over 400 signatories from groups including the National Union of Journalists, Getty Images, and Sony Music Publishing. ...

McCartney told the BBC that the proposed changes could disincentivise writers and artists and result in a “loss of creativity.”

The former Beatle 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?”“We’re the people, you’re the government. You’re supposed to protect us. That’s your job. So you know, if you’re putting through a bill, make sure you protect the creative thinkers, the creative artists, or you’re not going to have them.” ...

In December 2024, McCartney ... signed a petition, alongside actors Julianne Moore, Stephen Fry and Hugh Bonneville, stating that “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.”

John told the Sunday Times that he felt “wheels are in motion to allow AI companies to ride roughshod over the traditional copyright laws that protect artists’ livelihoods."

This will allow global big tech companies to gain free and easy access to artists’ work in order to train their artificial intelligence and create competing music. This will dilute and threaten young artists’ earnings even further. The musician community rejects it wholeheartedly.”

Last week, disagreements over the Data Bill raised concerns about whether AI companies should disclose the data used for training models, as legislators pushed for stricter rules to help creators determine if their work was scraped.

However, the House of Commons has rejected certain amendments proposed by the House of Lords, including those requiring AI firms to obtain permission before using copyrighted materials.

It's said that it's no big deal. That any man's work is public property. That artists have always "borrowed" from each other.

Artists have been learning from each other for centuries. When you create, you expect that other artists will learn from you. You learn from myriad sources, including active & passive learning from other art, studying textbooks, and taking lessons. Much of this you (or someone) pays for, supporting the entire ecosystem. In generative AI [however], commercial entities valued at millions or billions of dollars scrape as much content as they can, against creators’ will, without payment, making multiple copies along the way (which are subject to copyright law), to create a highly scalable competitor to the training data. It is beyond belief that people suggest these should be treated the same. I feel increasingly confident that people only use this argument because other arguments for gen AI scraping are, incredibly, even worse.

Jingle writer Elton John supported Starmer's election, and his alleged support for young musicians.

Now he sees betrayal: “It’s really disrespectful, it’s really disheartening. I supported this government,

I did a thing for them at St Paul’s Cathedral, when Keir Starmer said, ‘I want to help young people

in the music business, I want to support them’ - well, he’s not doing it.”

As a creator himself, of tunes for which people willingly (and unaccountably!) pay money, Elton John recognises that the Bill “will allow global big tech companies to gain free and easy access to artists’ work in order to train their artificial intelligence and create competing music. This will dilute and threaten young artists’ earnings even further. The musician community rejects it wholeheartedly.”

"We're complaining about people's legacy, whether they're young writers, whether they're young playwrights, journalists, whatever; some people aren't like me, they don't earn as much as I do, but when they're creative and it comes from the human soul and not a machine — because a machine isn't capable of writing anything with any soul in it — [then you're going] to rob young people of their legacy and their income.

"It's a criminal offense, I think.

“I think the government are just being absolute losers - and I’m very angry about it, as you can tell.

“Big tech has so much money - and if you’re a young person and you’re fighting big tech, good luck.

“I want the government to see sense; I want it to come back on our side. Because if they don’t, I’m going to feel like a suffragette.”

AI's developers have created something themselves. That's clear. But their creation, as they know, is an industrial-scale process for scraping copyrighted content, while leaving the artist's soul behind.

A hallmark of the AI developers is that they routinely discount, or even detest, the artistic soul, going so far as to both ignore it and then try to claim all of its enduring, exalted riches for themselves. They foolishly value mere money and market caps, whence, over the long term, it is the soul alone that is the best long-term investment, as the soul alone is immortal. It is the artist and creator who invests in the soul, it is the artist and creator who risks it all to express their vision, and it is the artist and creator who thus naturally and rightfully owns their art, and who owns the right to profit from it. ... “Hell is the soulless place where all art, music, literature, film, philosophy, religion, history, science, and poetry are generated by AI. Even Dante would be horrified.”

The elephant in the room is that AI does nothing well, not even cheating. AI can only cheat as well as its creators teach it to cheat.