Creative Corner: Make it FAIR, silent musicians and a little comic relief

Fair enough

Anyone picking up a paper or clicking on a news outlet’s homepage would have found it hard to miss the collective rallying cry from the UK’s creative industries this week as they launched a campaign to highlight how their content is at risk of being given away for free to AI firms.

Dubbed 'Make It Fair' (can you see what they did there, scrape that AI bot), the media campaign aims to raise awareness among the British public about the “existential threat” posed to the creative industries from generative AI models as they happily lift creative content from the internet without permission, acknowledgement or payment.

Also backed by heavyweights from throughout the music industry (more on that later), the campaign saw regional and national daily news brands run the same cover wrap and homepage takeovers alongside an OOH activation.

The statement on the cover wrap read: “MAKE IT FAIR: The government wants to change the UK's laws to favour big tech platforms so they can use British creative content to power their AI models without our permission or payment. Let's protect the creative industries – it's only fair.”

The campaign urges the British public to write to their MPs and back the creative industries, which collectively generate over £120 billion a year towards the UK economy.

Set against a backdrop of real versus fake news as AI increasingly embeds itself into search engines, it’s certainly an interesting conundrum. It offers a timely and compelling call for balance, freedom, and the preservation of what makes us human.

Silence is golden

Whilst the news outlets ran cover wraps and homepage takeovers, the music industry launched its own (and I would say more creative) take on Make it Fair this week.

Delivered with a large dose of irony (one human emotion arguably still beyond the talent of the bots), some of the UK’s most iconic musicians came together to release a silent album in protest of the government's proposed AI law called 'Is This Really What We Want?'. In all, one thousand musicians, including the likes of Damon Albarn, Annie Lennox, and Kate Bush, banded together to challenge the bill and call for the UK to abandon the law change that would allow AI companies to train models on copyrighted music without artists' permission.

The album, all 47 minutes and 17 seconds of relative silence and white noise, was made in empty studios and performance spaces, while the tracklist spells out: “The British government must not legalise music theft to benefit AI companies.”

Many artists have spoken out about how the unsolicited use of their voices could threaten their careers, and with streaming platform Deezer stating that around 10,000 AI-generated tracks are submitted to the platform daily – making up around 10 per cent of all its music uploads – that’s arguably no idle threat.

Something to smile about

And that leaves us with something refreshingly human. 

This year marks Comic Relief’s 40th anniversary, and fittingly, the organisation has delivered a dose of heartwarming humour with a new ad that reminds audiences of the transformative power of laughter. The launch film sees a group of office workers watching a classic Comic Relief skit featuring Mr Bean. As one colleague’s infectious laugh takes centre stage, others try in vain to hold in their laughter. Sparking a domino effect, it doesn’t take long for ripples of laughter to spread across the office as everyone can’t help but join in.

This milestone celebration is a hilarious reminder that every giggle, chuckle, and snort can make a difference and spark positive change. In the face of AI, it’s perhaps a poignant reminder of the power of creativity in shaping the future.