More than 30 European music creators have posted videos online calling on European Union policymakers to ensure that the copyright and transparency obligations in the EU AI Act are properly implemented.
A ‘Stay True To The Act’ website set up to host the videos declares that “artists are at risk of generative AI developers taking their music to train models without their consent”. These AI models, it adds, “can then produce huge volumes of content based on an artist’s music without the artist having any control - or even knowledge of it happening”.
“The EU has passed a law that should protect artists from this”, it goes on. However, “the EU is now working to put this law into practice and is watering down the legislation - failing to hold AI companies to account. Artists from across Europe are now calling on the EU Commission to Stay True to the Act that was originally passed and stand up for their rights”.
The EU AI Act introduced wide-ranging regulation of artificial intelligence across the European Union. For the music and wider creative industries, most important was the article that said AI companies must comply with European copyright law and “make publicly available a sufficiently detailed summary about the content used for training according to a template provided by the AI Office”.
Copyright owners, including in the music industry, have argued that AI companies should have to declare what existing content they have used to train their generative AI models. Where content has been used without the permission of relevant copyright owners, those rightsholders can then consider whether to launch copyright infringement litigation, or seek to pressure the AI company into agreeing a licensing deal.
It was hoped the AI Act would provide that transparency in Europe. But pretty much ever since the regulations were passed concerns have been expressed that the transparency obligation will be watered down when put into practice to such an extent that it will be useless for copyright owners.
A consortium of trade groups representing creators and rightsholders - including music industry organisations AEPO-ARTIS, CISAC, EMMA, IAO, ICMP, IFPI and IMPALA - have been calling on the European Commission to ensure that doesn’t happen. It’s that consortium that has rallied together artists from various EU countries to now speak out on the issue.
Participating creators include Portuguese musicians Tomas Wallenstein and Dela Marmy, Spanish singer-songwriter Álex Ubago, Finland’s Goldielocks and Poland’s 2025 Eurovision contender Justyna Steczkowska,
The trade groups say in a joint statement, “The EU AI Act, passed in 2024, included groundbreaking provisions requiring AI developers to disclose the content used to train their models”.
“However”, they add, “the EU is now working to put this law into practice and the legislation risks being watered down – failing to hold AI companies to account. The Stay True To The Act campaign is a direct appeal to the European policymakers to ensure that implementation of the act reflects its original spirit of transparency, accountability and the protection of European creators”.