Paul McCartney Contributes Silent Track to Musician-Led Protest Against AI Copyright Practices
Paul McCartney has joined a growing coalition of high-profile musicians protesting proposed U.K. copyright changes that could allow artificial intelligence companies to freely use recorded music as training material without licensing or compensation. His contribution arrives not in the form of a new song, but as a 2-minute, 45-second track of intentional silence, a gesture designed to underscore what artists say is at risk if their creative work is exploited by tech firms.
The piece, simply titled “Bonus Track,” will appear on the upcoming vinyl release of Is This What We Want?, a project launched earlier this year as a pointed response to government proposals that would loosen restrictions on data mining for AI development. The original digital version of the record featured only ambient studio noise with absolutely no lyrics, melodies, or instrumentation, conceptualizing the loss of creative agency and revenue musicians fear if the regulatory shift proceeds.
Organizers said at the time that the album’s “emptiness” was meant to symbolize both the erasure of artistic labor and the economic void artists expect to face. “If the government permits AI companies to harvest decades of recorded music without consent,” a spokesperson for the initiative said, “this is the cultural landscape we will be left with, silence where songs should be.”
McCartney’s participation elevates the campaign significantly. In recent comments to the BBC, he expressed rare public alarm over the prospect of tech firms absorbing creative catalogs into generative AI systems with limited oversight. “You get young people writing a beautiful song, and suddenly they don’t own it,” McCartney said. “Anyone who wants to can rip it off, and the money goes somewhere else entirely. It should go to the person who created it, not a tech giant mining their work in the background.”
Although McCartney has long avoided overtly political releases, save for occasional exceptions such as 1972’s “Give Ireland Back to the Irish”, his involvement reflects a shift within the creative industries, where concerns about AI have intensified. The former Beatle was not alone: the digital edition of Is This What We Want? credits a sweeping list of contributors, including Kate Bush, Annie Lennox, the Clash, Yusuf/Cat Stevens, Tori Amos, Damon Albarn, Billy Ocean, and composer Hans Zimmer. Each track title in the release’s original sequence formed a sentence: “The British Government Must Not Legalize Music Theft to Benefit AI Companies.”
McCartney framed the issue as a matter of basic fairness. “Somebody will always get paid,” he said. “Why shouldn’t it be the person who sat down and wrote the song?”
Proceeds from the album will benefit Help Musicians, a longstanding U.K. charity that supports artists through financial hardship, mental health services, and career resources. The vinyl edition of Is This What We Want? is set for release on Dec. 8, with no additional musical content beyond McCartney’s silent track. Its creators say that, in this case, silence is the message: a warning about what the future of recorded music could resemble if laws fail to protect the rights of the individuals who make it.
