Elton John calls UK government 'absolute losers' over AI copyright plans

[highplainsdem]

Source: Guardian

Sir Elton John has called the UK government “absolute losers” over proposals to let tech firms use copyright-protected work without permission.

The singer and songwriter said it was a “criminal offence” to change copyright law in favour of artificial intelligence companies.

In an interview on BBC One’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme, John said the government was on course to “rob young people of their legacy and their income”, adding: “It’s a criminal offence, I think. The government are just being absolute losers, and I’m very angry about it.”

John described the technology secretary, Peter Kyle, as a “bit of a moron” and said he would take ministers to court if the government did not change its plans on copyright. Last week, Kyle was accused of being too close to big tech after analysis showed a sharp increase in his department’s meetings with companies such as Google, Amazon, Apple and Meta since Labour won the election last July.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/may/18/elton-john-says-uk-government-being-absolute-losers-over-ai-copyright-plans

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The same goes, of course, for anyone in the US who supports the AI companies' theft of intellectual property.

Which Trump will likely do. Would probably have done very openly already, if they weren't likely waiting to see if the AI companies can win in the UK, at which point that will be cited as a reason to change US law.

Shame on the Labour government for pandering to the AI bros.


Editing to add BBC video of the interview:

[cstanleytech]

1. Problem with the AI debate is you can argue that artists like Weird Al are guilty of violating it as well.

After all he listened to the songs he made parodies of.

[highplainsdem]

2. Not the same thing at all, though it's a misleading argument AI peddlers and fans like to make to

justify the theft of the world's data and culture.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/ai-doesnt-learn-like-people-do

[cstanleytech]

8. Interesting article, I'm not sure if I can agree with their conclusions but very interesting to read nonetheless.

[subterranean]

4. Weird Al got permission from the artists to parody their songs

even though he wasn't legally required to do so.

[cstanleytech]

7. If I recall Coolio didn't give his.

[Angleae]

9. The record label probably did instead.

[cstanleytech]

12. Ya, they did I believe but if I also recall Coolio wasn't cool over it.

[SheltieLover]

3. He is correct, of course!!!

[Karasu]

5. As someone considering moving to the UK, I'm going to be watching this very closely.

[róisín_dubh]

11. You ought to be watching...

the immigration debacle more closely.
They are about to fuck over those of us with skilled worker visas in an attempt to curry favour with the extreme right.

[JI7]

6. I thought the UK would be better on this

Last edited Sun May 18, 2025, 07:33 PM - Edit history (1)

[fujiyamasan]

10. At this point no country wants to be left behind on LLMs

Both Europe and the UK are trying to attract talent and investment in this area. They are both far behind both the US and China when it comes to large language models and generative AI. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see similar laws being passed in other EU countries as well.