Sir Paul McCartney's 'worry' as he says 'it's not like that' in Beatles admission

Sir Paul McCartney reflected on how music changed his life as a young man in Liverpool as he warned about the impact that artificial intelligence (AI) could have on creative jobs in the future. The Beatles legend, 82, appeared on the BBC's 'Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg' this morning (January 26) as the Labour government is considering a change to copyright law, which would allow AI systems to use existing content to help train and develop their products.

Introducing the interview, Laura said: "Ministers are suggesting tech companies can hoover up music or any kind of art from the internet to develop their own AI models without having to pay for copyright. In other words, for free."

Paul said this poses a great threat in the future, as he believes it will lead to creatives being "ripped off". He said: "I'm worried about the copyrights not being protected - it gets a bit like the wild west. The people who created these copyrights don’t benefit and I think that takes away a lot of incentive.

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"You know, when we were kids in Liverpool, we found a job that we loved but it also paid the bills. It allowed us to be more and more creative, go out in the world, bring joy to people. It allowed us to do that.

"I think, if you take that away and they take the incentive away by not protecting the copyrights, I think it would be a shame and I think you would see a loss of creativity, which is a great pity. That’s what brings so much joy to the world."

Laura asked Paul: "The Beatles is about music and it’s also about being able to put food on the table and pay the bills as a young man. What do you think the risk is for the next generation of musicians coming through?"

The Walton-born musician responded: "For instance, you get young guys and girls coming up and they write a beautiful song and they don't own it, and they don't have anything to do with it. And anyone who wants can just rip it off.

"You get young guys, girls, coming up, and they write a beautiful song, and they don't own it, and they don't have anything to do with it. And anyone who wants can just rip it off.

"The truth is, the money's going somewhere. It gets on the streaming platforms and somebody’s getting it and it should be the person who created it. It shouldn’t just be some tech giant somewhere. Somebody's getting paid, so why shouldn't it be the guy who sat down and wrote 'Yesterday'? It should be something to do with him."

Following up on that point, Laura then suggested: "If you hadn’t been paid, maybe the world wouldn’t have heard 'Yesterday' or 'Let it Be' or 'Hey Jude'?" The 82-year-old replied: "That is really true, because you like to think of art as the muse - it’s just the musical history. It’s not like that.

"We started off and we had options to go off in the factory or get a job - and occasionally you did those kind of jobs - but the minute you found a job you loved, which for us was music, it really made a great big difference and it allowed us to do stuff that our working class friends had never been able to do. I think it was a great thing."

Despite his worries about AI, Paul has used the technology himself. The Beatles track 'Now and Then', which was released in 2023, used AI to clean up a John Lennon vocal demo from 1977 and George Harrison's guitar playing from 1995, allowing Paul and Ringo Starr to add to it with new recordings.

Laura pointed this out, but Paul said he and Ringo used the technology in a responsible manner, with no worry about someone being ripped off. He explained: He said: "I think AI is great - it can do lots of great things. As you say, we took an old cassette of John’s and cleaned his voice up so it sounded like it had just been recorded yesterday.

"So it has its uses, but my worry is in this ‘rip off’ area. That was John’s thing, he was in The Beatles, his widow gave us the tape, so there was no question of copyright. But if you take that and then rip it off.

"I think I’m on the internet singing ‘God Only Knows’ by the Beach Boys. I never sang it. But AI made me sing it. So somebody is getting some sort of pay off there and it’s not me, I’m not interested.

"But I was talking to someone and I said ‘you know’, it didn’t sound like me - not quite. But to casual observers, it’s me singing ‘God Only Knows’.

"But I said to this person ‘yeah, give it five years and it’s going to sound exactly like me’ and the guy said ‘one - give it one year’. It’s true, it’s going so fast that they’re going to be able to put my voice on anything - anybody’s voice on anything.

"So I think you just have to worry about the rip off, AI is a great thing, but it shouldn’t rip creative people off. There’s no sense in that - why would a government want to do that? I don’t get it."