Bands like The Script will “cease to exist” if we don’t regulate AI says frontman

The petition comes as the music industry warns of potential dangers of AI for artists who have no legal protection.

​Mr O’Donoghue complained that over 120 of his songs have been scraped for AI companies. As a result, AI bots end up learning how to create completely new tracks, based on work that is not theirs.

The Ivors Academy and the Screen Composers Guild of Ireland have also welcomed the motion in the Daíl calling on the Irish Government to back up the initiative. 

O’Donoghue claims that bands like The Script will come to an end if legislators don’t tackle the rise of AI.

​The popstar singer paid a visit yesterday to Leinster House to ask the Government to apply stronger copyright protections.

​The motion, which was tabled by Sinn Féin, includes measures and calls the Government to lead European action on creators’ rights during Ireland’s Presidency of the Council of the European Union.

They call on the government to introduce legislation to ensure fair remuneration, licensing, opt-outs and legal protections for creators, ensure public funding for the arts supports human creativity, not AI-generated content and include arts sector representation on Ireland’s AI Advisory Council.

In a reel shared by both the Screen Composers Guild of Ireland’s Instagram account and his own, O'Donoghue warns about how smaller emerging bands are under AI’s attack and how they won’t have any chance of succeeding in the future if there’s no strict regulation on AI and better transparency. 

​“Every one of those songs has five string players on it, a bass player, guitarists, lyricists, producers, vocals, background people, mixers, engineers. So every song is like a tiny business in itself,” he said.

“If someone was going around and stealing and taking all the sweets out of every single shop on Grafton Street, they would be hauled into the police station straight away.”

​O’Donoghue also said he was pleased that the Government would not oppose the motion, as Fianna Fáil's or Fine Gael’s would have resulted in agreement on the decision.