The European Parliament adopted today a report on copyright and generative AI, led by MEP Axel Voss.
IMPALA’s Executive Chair, Helen Smith, commented: “We welcome the European Parliament’s work in this regard. Whilst we do not agree with all the recommendations in the report, we fully agree exclusive rights are key. We also welcome the parliament’s emphasis on the importance of voluntary licensing. As far as our members, European independent music companies, are concerned, voluntary licensing – whether individual or collective – based on exclusive rights and contractual freedom to decide whether to authorise is key to build a licensing market for the use of copyright-protected music by GenAI models.”
Helen Smith continued
: “As set out last week at our Spring board meeting, Europe’s copyright toolkit should be the best in the world and this includes an effective framework on AI which embeds the importance of human artistry and diversity. This is vital to ensure Europe’s music sector, and of course the diversity which makes it so unique, is maximised as set out in Dan Fowler’s report on Powering an Independent and Culturally Diverse European Music Ecosystem.”
IMPALA urges the European parliament and the European commission to focus on implementation of the current copyright regime rather than look to open it up. Diversity in the music market already suffers from dilution through generative AI, fraud and manipulation, concentration in the music market and on the digital services side, lack of neutral independent infrastructure, as well as from the use of thresholds to reduce or even deny monetisation on streaming services.
Helen Smith concluded: “To achieve a truly efficient licensing market, full and specific authorisations in advance for training are essential and providers of AI models must deliver a high level of transparency regarding the content they have trained on. The report adopted today rightly states that rightsholders must have full control over the use of their copyright protected works by AI systems and models for training purposes and beyond, supported by full transparency regarding the use of those works, irrespective of the jurisdiction where the training took place. We also note with interest the report’s call on the European Commission to propose the establishment of a rebuttable presumption that copyright protected works have been used for the purposes of training where an AI model or system placed on the EU market has not complied with its transparency obligations. This is very important.”
