More than 70 leading British musicians and publishers have written to Prime Minister Keir Starmer urging immediate action to prevent large technology companies from using their work to train artificial intelligence systems without permission or payment.
Signatories to the letter, published Tuesday, include Sir Mick Jagger, Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Elton John, Sting, Annie Lennox, Kate Bush and Robbie Williams. They told the prime minister the government must act now to uphold creators’ rights rather than prioritise corporate interests, and pressed for protections to be in place before Mr Starmer agrees a UK–US tech deal during President Donald Trump’s state visit this week.
The letter said artists have benefited from international copyright protection for more than a century but that those protections are now being "flouted en masse by predominantly overseas tech companies," to the detriment of Britain’s £127 billion creative industries. It added that AI firms had digested "millions of copyright works without permission or payment," and criticised ministers for blocking attempts to require companies to disclose when they had used protected material.
Sir Elton John was quoted in the letter saying copyright administration must be transparent and require artists’ full permission, adding that the current approach ‘‘leaves the door wide open for an artist’s life work to be stolen, skimmed and scraped by Big Tech AI companies.’’ Robert Smith of The Cure warned the government against valuing corporate interests over the rights of citizens, saying the state should not be "giving away our cultural heritage and our creative future to Silicon Valley."
Ministers have previously shelved a plan that would have required content owners to opt out if they did not want material used to train AI models. A government-commissioned report on possible copyright law changes is not due until next year, prompting the artists to press for swifter action ahead of imminent international negotiations.
A government spokesman said no decisions had been taken, and that officials were aiming to balance support for rights holders and creatives while ensuring AI models can be trained on high-quality material in the UK. The spokesman did not set out a timescale for potential policy changes.
The call from musicians comes amid growing global debate over how copyright law should apply to AI developers that use vast datasets scraped from the internet. Creators and rights holders globally have raised concerns about unauthorised use of text, images, music and other works, while technology firms and some researchers argue access to large datasets is necessary for innovation.
Industry groups and rights organisations have urged clearer rules on data provenance, transparency about training sources and mechanisms for compensation where copyrighted material is used. The artists’ letter frames the issue as a matter of protecting livelihoods and the long-term future of Britain’s cultural industries ahead of a diplomatic agreement that could shape transatlantic technology policy.
The state visit by President Trump, scheduled this week, will include discussions on trade and technology cooperation. The musicians urged Mr Starmer to ensure any pact with the United States does not undermine UK copyright protections or leave creators without recourse when their work is used by overseas AI companies.
The letter adds to a series of high-profile interventions by creators calling for regulatory safeguards. As the UK considers its approach, Parliament and industry groups are likely to continue debating whether statutory clarity, licensing systems or other measures are needed to protect copyrighted works used in AI training datasets.