There is a "musical dice" game

that can be played on the internet. It consists of a sixteen by twelve grid. You use two dice, roll them together and then add the numbers. You can then click on the relevant box in the grid and repeat the process until another eleven times. When that is done you can "play" the "music" you have "composed". 

If the person who introduced me to this rather fascinating little page is correct (and he has a reputation for that and the quirky) then it is based on a game invented by Mozart. It is quite likely. Mozart would likely have had fun getting others to roll the dice. He would then likely have played something within the parameters that had been set. He would also have had the capacity to turn almost anything into something that could be played with many variations. (If you doubt me then find his variations on what most of us know as Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.) 

I tried another way of "playing" the game without the dice. The result is, as I thought it would be, much the same. The sound is pleasant enough to the ear but it all sounds very similar. It is a bit of fun - and that is all it is. I am not "composing music".  I have absolutely no idea how to set about that. I can, up to a point, read music but that is all. 

The idea that those "training artificial intelligence" should be permitted to use, without payment, the work of actual musicians or writers or artists or anyone else who creates something is surely on this level. It is not "composing" or "writing" or "making" anything at all. It may seem that way to someone who does not have those skills but it does not have depth. It does not have those tiny little things which we, often unconsciously, recognise as "human". 

In an attempt to get "data centres" built and running in this country the Prime Minister wants to change the law. It would mean anyone who creates anything will need to "opt out" rather than "opt in". It will allow those "training" AI to take the work of actual human beings and use it without paying for it. If that happens it will not allow theft but we will be inundated with music, books and more which will all lack that "something" which genuinely satisfies us.