Responding to Technology Secretary Peter Kyle’s visit to the States to meet tech firms, UK Music Chief Executive Tom Kiehl said:

"We fully support the ambition to make the UK a global hub for investment and expertise in Artificial Intelligence.

"However, Government's plans to make unwanted changes to our gold-standard UK copyright law would give tech firms free access to train their AI robots on all the greatest British music from acts ranging from The Beatles and Ed Sheeran to Dua Lipa and Adele - without having to pay or ask for permission.

"These deeply flawed plans to give a free ride to US tech giants by letting them steal our music would be disastrous for everyone who works in the UK music industry, and would trump our creative industries which contribute £126 billion to our economy.

"We must not allow the Government to use our world-leading music and creative industries as a sacrificial lamb in their efforts to cosy up to the tech bosses of Silicon Valley.”