March 13 2024
Strasbourg, France: The European Parliament, which has 705 elected politicians from across 27 EU Member States, has voted to approve The EU AI Act.
The law will directly impact all in the music industry, creators’ rights internationally and how AI companies engage with the world’s digital music and datasets. It will be the first AI-specific legislation in the world.
JOHN PHELAN / ICMP Director General
“This is important for everyone in the music sector, not just in Europe but worldwide. Today, Members of the European Parliament emphatically endorsed The EU AI Act. This is vital legislation, with detailed provisions to tackle many AI malpractices and give creators more tools to enforce their rights.
AI is a fantastic tool. What matters is how that tool is used. Our industry uses it in many ways such as to bring music to fans worldwide, to administer licenses and it has long been part of the creative process. However, too many AI companies misuse AI to engage in widescale and unlicensed scraping of digital music and datasets. Such malpractices in the pursuit of commercial profit are pervasive, harm creators’ rights and are illegal.
The EU AI Act obliges AI companies to respect copyright law and introduces a number of benefits including transparency requirements, obligations to keep detailed records of training data and sanctions for breaching these laws. These training data transparency provisions can have global effect. Our industry applauds the EU co-legislators for sending a clear and balanced signal that copyright matters.
ICMP looks forward to working to support the new EU AI Office and we will continue to work with governments and authorities worldwide to ensure artificial intelligence always respects real rights.”
