this may not be the case the best To be honest, I plan to lobby the UK government on AI and creative industries policy. Ministers now seem completely preoccupied with the question of whether to oust the Prime Minister.
This is unfortunate for British label organization BPI. BPI this morning published its report, Driving UK Growth: The Role of Music Licensing in the Age of AI.
But we shouldn’t get too discouraged. The report raises serious policy questions for the music industry regarding AI, and could have an impact once the current political power struggle subsides.
The report’s central message will come as no surprise to regular Music Ally readers. It’s asking the government not to throw the music industry under the bus by allowing AI companies to train using copyrighted material without requiring a license.
Instead, the report, commissioned by consulting firm WPI Economics, argues for governments to find “ways to support and facilitate copyright licensing” between rights holders and AI companies.
Naturally, there are some numbers to support this argument. The report claims that rights holders across the creative industries will have 274 commercial license agreements with AI companies by 2026.
Specifically for music, the report lists 26 significant deals to date with *deep breath* Suno, Udio, Klay Vision, Stability AI, Nvidia, ElevenLabs, Spotify, Vermillio, Sound Patrol, Songfox, Sureel, Musical AI, Prorata.ai, Soundlabs, Meta, TikTok, BandLab, Google, and Splice.
Many of these deals were signed by the three major labels and Merlin, as well as by collecting societies. However, BPI surveyed members of independent labels for the report and found that 16% were already “considering a licensing partnership” and 77% were “open to licensing their music for ethical use by AI.”
Return to the main lobbying message. 97% of these companies believe that “existing copyright frameworks are suitable for licensing AI systems and are important to their business,” leading the report to highlight “the uncertainty created by discussions about unnecessary changes to copyright law.”
This is a reference to ongoing speculation that the UK government may introduce some sort of “text and data mining” exception for AI companies, allowing them to train models on copyrighted material without requiring permission or licenses.
BPI’s report also criticizes the “opacity of AI training data,” or the fact that AI companies do not disclose what they have already trained their models with, arguing that this is “a major barrier preventing AI companies from having a seat at the licensing table.”
All of this leads to the report’s three main demands for the government. It is about keeping the existing copyright system intact. Force AI companies to be transparent about their training inputs. And apply this to all models that are ‘deployed’ in the UK, even if they were trained in another country with different rules.
The report also reminds the government of the economic value of the UK music industry: it will be worth £8bn in 2024, including £4.8bn of exports, supporting 220,000 jobs.
Finally, the research includes consumer surveys, which suggest, not entirely surprisingly, that ordinary Britons strongly agree with the commissioners’ policy objectives in the report.
(Okay, maybe that’s an exaggeration. 77% of consumers think rights holders and artists should be compensated when their work is used by AI to create new songs, and the same percentage think artists’ music and vocals shouldn’t be used by AI companies without their permission.) do In our opinion, it holds true as a measure of public attitudes towards GenAI. )
“This research shows there is a viable path to making the UK a global hub for ethical AI music licensing. Music labels are pioneering licensing deals with ethical AI companies, with multiple deals already in place and more conversations underway,” said Sophie Jones, chief strategy officer at BPI.
“For this market to expand successfully, it must be supported by governments through a determined commitment to complying with existing copyright laws and mandating record-keeping and disclosure.”
As mentioned above, this report provides a clear picture of the music industry’s views on AI and licensing, and what it wants from the government.
Of course, there are other opinions. The AI/technology industry is making its own case against the UK government. For example, tech industry body TechUK is lobbying heavily for exceptions for AI text and data mining.
BPI will hope that relevant ministers will read the report and take its views into account once the government has finished its current infighting and is ready to finalize AI legislation.
But even if politicians promise the music industry a certain path forward, it doesn’t mean it will be passed into law as quickly as the industry would like, such as this week’s strong disappointment over the postponement of Britain’s planned ban on ticketed shows.
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