News from ECSA: December 2024

On 29 November, ECSA, together with with Associação Brasileira de Compositores para Audiovisual (Musimagem Brasil) and Asociación Colombiana de Compositores de Música Para Cine (MUCINE) organised its third International Creators Dialogue, titled “Addressing Common Challenges Faced by Audiovisual Composers in Europe and Latin America”. The panel addressed audiovisual composers’ challenges including ‘Fairness and Transparency in Music Contractual Practices’, and the ‘Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Music Creators’. The Dialogue was organised as part of Musimagem's 2024 Annual Congress and was also livestreamed. ECSA Board member and composer Luis Ivars (Musimagen) moderated the discussion. The other participants in the dialogue were Marcos Alves de Souza (Brazilian Ministry of Culture), Marc du Moulin (ECSA), Felipe Radicetti (Musimagem Brasil), José Riucarte (MUCINE), and Marcos Souza (Musimagem Brasil). The International Creators Dialogues, co-funded by Creative Europe, serve as platforms for networking activities  with international music creators’ associations in America, Asia and Africa. A recording of the panel is available below.

On 10 December, ECSA’s Technology & AI Working Group meeting was joined by Professor Daniel J. Gervais (Vanderbilt Law School) who delivered a presentation on his paper “The Remuneration of Music Creators for the Use of Their Works by Generative AI”, published last August by Fair Trade Music International (FTMI) and the International Council of Music Creators (CIAM). The paper aims to address the challenge of ensuring compensation for music creators and their partners once most of the existing music has been used to train AI models. It proposes a new right to equitably address the ethical issues surrounding creator remuneration, as generative AI models generate output that compete with human creators’ work. Daniel Gervais’ presentation was followed by a Q&A with ECSA members. We warmly thank Daniel Gervais for sharing his insights.

On 2 and 3 December, Music Export Poland, the Polish Music Market Council, and the City of Bydgoszcz organised the Bydgoszcz Music Summit, gathering policymakers and stakeholders from across the music sector. On the first day of the event, ECSA and various stakeholders from the European and Polish music sector discussed the drafting of a guideline document to be presented under the upcoming Polish Presidency of the EU. On the second day, ECSA’s European Affairs Officer Giacomo Bonetti joined the panel “Digital regulation and copyright protection in the context of new media and streaming platforms”, in which he highlighted the importance of making streaming sustainable for creators, the respect of copyright in AI training, and ECSA’s Manifesto priorities. The panel was moderated by music journalist Łukasz Kaminski and saw the participation of Miłosz Bembinow (Polish Composers’ Association, ZAiKS), Burak Özgen (GESAC), Patrycja Łobaczewska (Believe) and Anna Ceynowa (Polish Music Industry Council, ZPAV). We thank all the organisers for a fruitful conference. A recording of the conference, with the abovementioned panel starting at 4:08:32, is available via the link below.

On 2 December, CISAC, the international network of collective management organisations, published a study on the economic impact of generative AI on the music and audiovisual industries. Conducted by PMP strategy, the study found that music creators will see their income decrease by 24% by 2028, leading to a total loss of €10 billion in just 5 years (this number increases to €22 billion when accounting for losses incurred by audiovisual creators). Notably, €1 billion will be lost through music streaming alone, squeezing creators’ revenues from the current 8% to a mere 6%. Meanwhile, the market size of generative AI music outputs is expected to grow to a staggering €16 billion by 2028. These findings indicate the urgent need to place transparency and creators’ consent and remuneration at the center of policy regulating generative AI. Moreover, they clearly indicate the need to reform the music streaming ecosystem, which has long been unsustainable for composers and songwriters. ECSA Honorary President Alfons Karabuda (former President of IMC and SKAP) also provided input to the study in an in-depth interview.

On 11 December, the Conseil supérieur de la propriété littéraire et artistique (CSPLA), an independent advisory body within the French Ministry of Culture, released a report authored by IP law professor Alexandra Bensamoun on the implementation of the EU AI Act’s transparency rules. The report aims to clarify the scope of Art. 53(1), which lays down obligations for AI providers to comply with copyright law, respect the reservation of rights (Art. 4 DSM Directive), and provide a “sufficiently detailed summary” of the data used for training. In particular, the document provides a template for the summary and recommends a granular approach for the disclosure of copyrighted works used in training, requiring the disclosure of URLs, date of scraping, and unique identifiers. With regard to the need to protect business confidentiality (recital 107), the report maintains that while the techniques used by the model do not need to be made public (the “recipe”), the list of works used (the “ingredients”) must be disclosed to ensure that rights are respected. In general, the document also recalls that transparency is a prerequisite for the emergence of an ethical and competitive market that remunerates copyrighted content. Find the full report (in French) below.

On 17 December, the UK government launched a consultation on a copyright exception that would allow the unlicensed use of copyrighted works for the training of AI. Open until 25 February, the consultation will gather feedback from the creative industries and AI developers on the introduction of a copyright exception for the commercial training of AI, while allowing rights holders to reserve their rights and requiring some transparency from AI firms over the data used. Notably, this is very similar to the TDM exception introduced by the 2019 EU Copyright Directive (Art. 4(3)), whose application to generative AI and its unworkable reservation of rights have been repeatedly denounced by ECSA and other authors’, performers’ and creative workers’ organisations (most recently here). The UK proposal comes after a 2022 attempt by the UK government to introduce a broad copyright exception, which was fiercely opposed by creators and other rightsholders. Fairly Trained CEO and composer Ed Newton-Rex, a strong advocate against the unlicensed use of creators’ work by AI companies, has denounced the proposal as a “coup for AI companies” and called for the British government to retract the proposal and support licensing. Participate in the consultation via the link below.

On 13 December 2024, ECSA’s European Affairs and Programme Manager Claire Iceaga attended the Huitième journée d'économie de la culture co-organised by the Département des études, de la prospective et des statistiques du ministère de la Culture (DEPS), the LabEx ICCA de l’Université Sorbonne-Paris-Nord and the Centre national de la musique (CNM). Panel discussions and presentations delved into the topic of recommendation systems and remuneration models for rights holders on music streaming platforms, exploring alternative payment models and their impact on creators' remuneration.

On 13 and 14 February, the Screen Composers Guild of Canada (SCGC) organises its “International Screen Composers Leadership Summit” in Berlin, alongside Berlinale and the Nordic Film Music Days. Uniting Canadian and international screen music experts, the event will host discussions on AI in screen composing, composer rights, and more. You can now pre-register your interest via the link below to receive updates and an invitation.

From 19 to 29 March 2025, Festival International Music & Cinema Marseille (MCM) organises a Masterclass in Musical Composition. Directed by experienced and talented composers, this Masterclass allows up to ten young composers and musicians to participate in a 10-day intensive workshop, revisiting the original music of several short films or film excerpts. The aim is to create a finished work for MCM’s closing ceremony and perform a public presentation of this film-concert, interpreted by the students. Applications are open from 9 December 2024 to 26 January 2025. Composers wishing to participate must be between 18 and 35 years old; be a composer-performer; and have a strong interest in the relationship between music and image. Find more info on how to apply below.

Last month, the ceremony of the Camille Awards (European Film Composer Awards) took place at the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris, France. The ceremony was organised by ECSA in collaboration with its members SNAC, U2C and UNAC. The aftermovie of the ceremony is now available via the link below.