The UK’s Labour Party has passed a motion on AI at its annual conference which says that “the interests of workers and businesses must be balanced” as AI is developed, and that major corporations “must not be allowed to use artificial intelligence in a way that exploits working people or diminishes their rights and pay”.
The motion was backed by the Musicians’ Union with Naomi Pohl, MU General Secretary, giving a speech to conference delegates laying out the MU’s key priorities relating to AI.
“We acknowledge the extraordinary benefits AI can bring to society across many industries, including the creative industries”, Pohl told the conference. “However, in music, we are once again facing a David and Goliath battle. Where big tech and major international corporations ride roughshod over the livelihoods and rights of our members, the music makers: performers, artists, songwriters, composers and music producers”.
The MU is seeking to ensure musicians are not exploited by either AI companies or music businesses working with AI companies, especially when existing music is being used to train generative AI models. It set out its key objectives at the conference: creator consent, clear labelling of AI-generated content, and fair remuneration for performers and creators from revenue generated by AI music.
Urgent projections for human creators are needed, added Pohl, to stop their works “being used by tech firms in order to train and develop their AI models, without consent”.
These models, she went on, “have the ability to generate endless new creations at the touch of a keypad, generating potentially unlimited revenue. It is already happening and gobbling up opportunities for our members to make a living. But there is no deal for our members and no mechanism for them to be paid”.
The last UK government tried to bring together the creative and tech industries to agree an industry code regarding the copyright obligations of AI companies, but without success.
The new Labour government is now considering how to regulate AI. The creative industries want ministers to make it clear that where AI companies use existing content to train their models they must get permission from the relevant copyright owners. Inevitably, this would require a licensing deal to be agreed between AI companies and those rightsholders, which could result in new revenue streams for the creative industries, including music.
The music industry is more or less aligned on that demand. However, one area that splits the industry is whether artists, musicians and songwriters who do not own the copyright in their music must also grant consent. For example, artists or songwriters that have signed to a label or publisher, or a session musician who has been paid for a recording session.
If creator consent was required, record labels and music publishers that are negotiating deals with AI companies would need to get the consent of individual music creators before allowing their recordings and songs to be used in AI training.
The MU is adamant that individual creator consent should be required. Pohl explained that the union is calling for “explicit consent to be sought from human creators to use their works to train AI models”, adding that “companies like the major record labels can’t rely on rights-grab contracts signed before AI music existed” to assume they already have that consent.
The AI motion at the Labour conference, also backed by the unions Unite and USDAW, included a number of other more specific calls on the government, in addition to the key objective of ensuring that the interests of workers and businesses are balanced as AI evolves.
Among other things, it said the government should “take action so that the UK’s employment rights framework is fit for purpose, in the light of current and future advances in AI”; that trade unions should be consulted by the government in relation to AI policy; and measures should be put in place to prevent the use of AI for “digital blacklisting”, which is when the “unregulated collection of data can be used to victimise on the basis of special categories of personal data, including trade union membership”.
Pohl’s speech concluded, “The UK music industry has been world-leading for decades. Everyone, regardless of their background, should have the opportunity to have a career in music. But unless we stand up and protect today’s music creators and ensure being a musician remains a viable career, great British music will be consigned to history”.
“We call on the Labour government”, she added, “to stand with us in our David and Goliath fight and be the champions of the 35,000 talented and highly skilled musicians we represent”.