CEOs of major UK record labels to discuss impact of AI on music industry with UK Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer

The future of AI in the creative industries in the UK is set to be discussed at a roundtable led by Conservative MP and Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer.  The roundtable will be attended by leading figures in the UK creative industries including the CEOs of Universal Music, Sony Music and Warner Music.

Senior bosses from the UK’s creative sectors will join representatives from the Intellectual Property Office and Creators’ Rights Alliance to explore both the opportunities and threats that AI poses to the creative industries.

Universal Music's David Jospeh, Chairman of Sony Music Jason Iley, and CEO of Warner Music Tony Harlow will all be in attendance at the round table. Universal Music on the other side of the pond is currently embroiled in a lawsuit against Anthropic, an AI lyric generating platform, highlighting the extent to which Artificial Intelligence is alarming major music labels.

The roundtable will cover concerns about copyrighted material being used without permission to train AI models like ChatGPT, and the risk that content created by AI can potentially infringe creative intellectual property.

The meeting is also expected to cover the necessary protections for artists’ likenesses and voices, an issue which has been of huge concern in 2023, with AI protection being a crucial issue for the Hollywood writer's and actor's strike which saw Hollywood grind to a halt for months on end.

Other issues that have been highlighted by advancements in AI technology has been music content that mimics artists. Streaming platform Youtube has introduced measures to allow rights-holders to request that AI generated music mimicking their artistry can be taken down.

However, the platform is also experimenting  in partnership with artists and labels such as Charli XCX and John Legend, to allow creators to clone certain artists’ own voices on YouTube Shorts. A new venture which the streaming platform is hoping will pay off, allowing AI to be deployed as a creative tool rather than a creative threat.

The conversations will also consider how AI can be used positively to achieve the goals set out in the British Government’s Creative Industries Sector Vision and boost these industries by £50 billion, create one million extra jobs, and build a pipeline of future talent by 2030.

Speaking in a statement released by the British Department for Culture, Media & Sport, Minister Lucy Frazer highlighted some of the potential benefits of AI saying: "Further AI adoption can allow artists to perform in new ways, like ABBA Voyage which brings together avatars and a live band"

Continuing, Frazer said: “AI can also streamline experimentation, generating new edits of songs or footage in minutes which would usually take creators hours

The meetings follow the publication of the AI Regulation White Paper, which set out the UK’s ‘pro-innovation approach’ for the regulation of AI.

The roundtable will cover the work of the Intellectual Property Office in developing a new code of practice. The new code will aim to ensure appropriate protections for copyright material while making content licences to develop AI models more easily available.

List of invitees to the roundtable with Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer:

David Joseph, CEO & chairman, Universal Music UK

Jason Iley, CEO & chairman, Sony Music UK

Tony Harlow, CEO, Warner Music UK

William Sargent CEO, Framestore Group

Dan Guthrie, Director General, Alliance for IP

Nicola Soloman CEO, Society for Authors and Chair, Creators’ Rights Alliance

Chris Mills, Director of Rights Policy and Enforcement, Intellectual Property Office

Dan Conway, CEO, Publishers’ Association

Jonathan Lockwood, VP Corporate Counsel, Getty Images

Nina Schick, Author, Deepfakes: the Coming Infocalypse