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LONDON — A U.K. Parliament committee is calling on the British government to address the “endemic” misogyny and discrimination that many female artists face in the music industry.
A report from the Women and Equalities Committee (WEC) published Tuesday (Jan. 30) urges ministers to take legislative steps to protect musicians and creators from sexual harassment, including banning the use of non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) in cases involving sexual abuse, bullying or misconduct.
The highly critical 70-page report acknowledges that female representation is improving in many areas of the business but warns that progress remains slow with sexual harassment and abuse against women common occurrences in an industry “still routinely described as a boys club.”
“People in the industry who attend awards shows and parties currently do so sitting alongside sexual abusers who remain protected by the system and by colleagues,” said the cross-party committee of MPs.
Their inquiry found a “culture of silence” existed across the music industry with many victims of sexual harassment or abuse afraid to report such incidents.
Victims who do speak out struggle to be believed or may find their career ends as a consequence, the committee found. They said that much of the evidence they had received had to remain undisclosed, “including commentary on television shows and household names,” due to confidentially and legal clauses.
The report follows an inquiry into misogyny in the U.K. music industry, which began in June 2022 and saw a number of artists and executives give evidence, including senior executives from all three major labels, representatives of the live industry, former BBC Radio 1 DJ Annie Mac and British pop singer and Ivors Academy board director Rebecca Ferguson.
Giving evidence in September, Ferguson, who first shot to fame on the U.K. version of The X Factor, said that misogyny in music was just “the tip of the iceberg of the things that are happening behind the scenes.”
She said that women in the music business who experience abuse often feel that they “can’t speak up” because “they are scared they will never work again.” Ferguson told MPs that she had been informed rapes were going unreported.
In addition to sexual abuse and harassment, the inquiry found that women pursuing careers in music face limited opportunities compared to men, a lack of support and persistent unequal pay, while female artists are “routinely undervalued and undermined.”
The committee recommends that ministers introduce legislation to give freelance workers the same protections from discrimination as employees, as well as imposing a legal duty on companies and employers to protect workers from sexual harassment by third parties.
On the subject of non-disclosure agreements, the report said the government should consider a retrospective moratorium on NDAs signed by victims of sexual abuse.
The report also called for stronger safety requirements for industry sectors where harassment and abuse are known to take place, such as recording studios and music venues.
Additionally, managers of artists should be licensed, while record labels were recommended to regularly publish information about the diversity of their creative rosters, workforce and gender and ethnicity pay gaps – a practice that many labels and large music companies already do.
The committee said the music industry and the British government should increase investment and support in diverse talent, particularly in male-dominated areas such as A&R, sound engineering and production.
“Women’s creative and career potential should not have limits placed upon it by ‘endemic’ misogyny which has persisted for far too long within the music industry,” Caroline Nokes, chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, said in a statement.
Responding to Tuesday’s report, Jo Twist, CEO of U.K. labels trade body BPI, and Yolanda Brown, BPI chair, said all parts of the music industry have “a shared responsibility” to tackle misogyny in music “head on.”
Silvia Montello, CEO of the London-based Association of Independent Music (AIM), said the report “makes for uncomfortable but sadly unsurprising reading.”
“It should not still be this hard, here in 2024, for women to be supported to succeed and to be taken as seriously as our male counterparts,” said Montello in a statement.
LONDON — Paid-for streaming revenues grew to a record high of £1.86 billion ($2.4 billion) in the United Kingdom last year, helping drive a 9.6% rise in overall music spending, according to year-end figures from the Digital Entertainment and Retail Association (ERA).
In 2023, British music fans spent a total of £2.2 billion ($2.8 billion) on music purchases via subscriptions to music streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music, and vinyl and CD purchases. That’s more-or-less equal to 2001’s total, the historic peak of the CD era, when U.K. music sales stood at just over £2.2 billion, reports ERA. When compared to 2019, the last full year pre-pandemic, music sales have climbed by almost 39% in the space of four years.
Driving the growth was a 9.8% year-on-year rise in subscription streaming revenues, while spending on physical formats was up 10.9% to £311 million ($395 million) the London-based organization says in its preliminary annual figures published on Tuesday (Jan. 9).
Breaking down physical music revenues, vinyl album sales grew 18% to £177 million with Taylor Swift’s 1989 (Taylor’s Version), The Rolling Stones’ Hackney Diamonds and Lana Del Rey’s Did You Know There’s A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd among the year’s best-selling titles.
Despite CD sales falling 7% year-on-year in volume terms to 10.8 million units, revenue from the long-written-off format actually rose 2% in 2023 to £126 million ($160 million), marking the first increase in CD revenue in two decades.
ERA says the growth can be attributed to the format’s continued popularity among dedicated music fans, keen to buy their favorite artists in multiple and deluxe formats, as well as a rise in the number of Gen Z and Millennials buying CDs.
This Life by British pop group Take That was 2023’s top CD album in the U.K. with just over 127,000 units sold. Swift’s 1989 (Taylor’s Version) was the year’s second most popular CD release.
Streaming now makes up more than 88% of all music sales in the U.K., compared to 64% five years ago, with physical formats accounting for 9.4% of today’s market, according to labels trade body BPI, which released its year-end listening figures last week.
BPI reports that more than 179 billion music tracks were streamed in the U.K. in 2023, up 12.8% on the previous year’s total, with the equivalent of 182.8 million albums streamed or purchased in 2023 across digital and physical formats, up 10% on the previous 12 months.
In a statement, ERA CEO Kim Bayley said the year-end figures represented a “red letter day” for the U.K. music industry with the rise in revenues “a testament not just to the creativity of artists, but to the entrepreneurial drive of digital services and retailers.”
Although both ERA and BPI use Official Charts Company sales data as the basis for their reporting, the two organizations take different approaches to measuring the health of the recorded music business. ERA’s figures are based on retail spending in the U.K., whereas BPI’s measure music consumption levels. (ERA’s subscription streaming numbers are estimates based on information provided by digital services and label trade income reported to BPI). BPI and ERA are both due to publish their full annual reports later in the year.
Overall, revenues across the U.K. entertainment market – comprising of music, video and games retail sales – were up 7% on 2022’s total to a record high of £11.9 billion ($15.1 billion), marking the eleventh successive year of growth. Streaming and digital services accounted for almost 92% of entertainment revenue, reports ERA.
Of the three sectors, recorded music sales are in third place, trailing both games and video (comprising of video-on-demand subscription services such as Netflix and DVD sales), which totaled £4.7 billion ($6 billion) and £4.9 billion ($6.2 billion) respectively.
The U.K. is the world’s third biggest recorded music market behind the U.S. and Japan with sales of just under $1.7 billion in trade value, according to IFPI’s 2023 Global Music Report.
U.K.-headquartered TV-based music streaming service Roxi, backed by such investors as Simon Cowell, Kylie Minogue and Sheryl Crow, is gearing up to launch in the U.S. during the first quarter of 2024 via partnerships unveiled on Sunday.
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The company, founded in 2017, has deals with all major labels, touting that it offers its partners “a unique full-catalog music video service – all the original music videos plus over 100 million Roxi virtual music videos.” It said that in the U.S. it would soon become available “on Samsung, LG, Vizio, Sony Bravia, Roku, Comcast, Fire TV, Google TV, Android TV, NVIDIA Shield TVs and set-top boxes.”
It vowed that its free music streaming app would “change the way millions of Americans enjoy music at home with free access to 100 million music videos, hundreds of curated music video channels, music video karaoke, music games and more.”
In the U.K., consumers can use the Roxi app free under the Roxi Standard plan with ads or for £6.99 ($8.85) per month after 30 free days. In the U.S., the company said it would also offer the Roxi Standard service for free, with ads, including “unlimited music videos, exclusive music channels, essential karaoke catalog and essential music games.” The $8.99 a month (after a free 30-day trial) Roxi Premium plan in the U.S. promises consumers to “play anything and everything, with no limits and no adverts.” Roxi TV app users can also claim a free Roxi Karaoke Microphone when taking up a 30-day premium trial or otherwhise purchase it from roxi.tv for $29.99.
With smart TV and pay TV vendors working with Roxi to add voice- and remote-powered on-demand music video search and play, “smart TVs will leapfrog smart speakers with free and instant voice-activated music videos,” the company predicted in announcing its move into the U.S. “Consumers will be able to command their TV to ‘play Taylor Swift’ with their voice – the TV will then automatically turn on and start playing Taylor Swift’s music videos.”
Roxi CEO Rob Lewis touted that the service provides more than audio-only music. “Our partnerships with the world’s biggest smart and pay TV companies brings free and instant access to Roxi’s 100 million music videos on tens of millions of TVs,” he said. “Consumers will be able to use their voice or TV remote to instantly play all their favorite music, all in a music video format.”
The company sees its service as helping TV sets replace the role of audio speakers in many homes. “Music represents 80 percent of listening on smart speakers today; but that’s audio-only listening and audio-only is ridiculous on a TV and when there is a TV in every home,” said Lewis. “The TV will overtake the smart speaker as the preferred music player in the home, not only because an audio-visual experience is better in the home than audio-only but also because a TV provides for a much superior browsing experience.”
Roxi cited results of a survey that it commissioned to highlight its market potential. It found that more than 75 percent of U.S. consumers would want to try Roxi’s free TV app on their smart TVs and 60 percent are “interested in switching their home music listening from audio-only smart speakers to full music videos playing on the TV.”
Matthew Broughton, director, LG smart TV content & services, said: “Roxii’s full catalog of 100 million original and virtual music videos will be integrated directly into the search function on all new LG TVs from 2024, enabling LG TV users to search for music, as well as TV and movies.”
Cowell, Minogue and Crow are celebrity shareholders in Roxi and also serve it as music curators. Other investors in the company include the likes of Robbie Williams, Alesha Dixon, Stephen Fry, former Formula 1 and McLaren executive Ron Dennis, former U2 manager Paul McGuinness and others.
This article was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.
Hit singles by Miley Cyrus, Taylor Swift and SZA helped lift the U.K. streaming market to a record high last year with more than 179 billion music tracks streamed across the 12 months, up 12.8% on 2022’s total, and nearly double the volume of audio streams registered five years ago, according to year-end figures from labels trade body BPI.
Female artists fueled the growth in streaming consumption, spending an unprecedented 31 weeks at No. 1 on the United Kingdom’s official singles chart – the highest total since the charts launched in 1952.
Leading the pack is Cyrus’s “Flowers,” which spent 10 weeks atop the U.K. charts and was the year’s biggest song with 198 million streams.
In total, seven of the ten most popular songs in the U.K. in 2023 were by female acts with SZA, Swift, Cameroonian American singer Libianca and U.K. artists PinkPantheress, RAYE and Ellie Goulding (in collaboration with Calvin Harris) joining Cyrus in the annual best-sellers list. BPI reports it is the highest number of female artists in the year-end top 10 in more than 70 years.
The rest of the top 10 was made up of tracks by British rappers Dave and Central Cee, Nigerian singer Rema and Harry Styles.
Across the year, almost half (48.5%) of the songs that entered the top 10 of the U.K.’s weekly official singles chart were by female acts, either solo or in collaboration with other artists.
Jo Twist
Courtesy Photo
Reflecting on a record-breaking year for female artists, BPI chief executive Jo Twist said the achievements of stars like Miley Cyrus, Taylor Swift and RAYE should be celebrated, but cautioned against complacency in the industry “to ensure that this becomes the norm.”
BPI reports that streaming now makes up more than 88% of all music sales in the U.K., compared to 64% five years ago, with physical formats accounting for 9.4% of today’s market.
The trade body says that more than 2,500 tracks generated over 10 million audio and video streams in 2023, compared to around 1,100 songs reaching the same total in 2018.
Overall, music consumption rose for a ninth consecutive year with the equivalent of 182.8 million albums streamed or purchased in 2023 across digital and physical formats, up 10% on the previous 12 months.
Vinyl album sales rose for the 16th consecutive year, growing at their fastest rate this decade (up almost 12%) to 6.1 million units and marking the highest level of vinyl purchases in the country since 1990, when Phil Collins, Elton John and Madonna were among the year’s best-selling 12-inch releases.
In 2023, that accolade was won by Swift, who holds three places in the year’s top-selling vinyl album charts, including the No. 1 spot with 1989 (Taylor’s Version). Other entries in the top 10 included records by The Rolling Stones, Lana Del Rey, Fleetwood Mac, Blur, Lewis Capaldi and Olivia Rodrigo.
CD sales dropped 6.9% year-on-year to 10.8 million units, while cassette sales stayed broadly level with recent years at 136,000 units. Digital album sales dropped 4.6% to 3.5 million units with best-sellers including Trustfall by Pink and But Here We Are by Foo Fighters.
Despite the dominance of streaming, BPI reports that physical format sales made up more than half of all chart-eligible sales for the vast majority (86%) of albums that debuted at the top of the U.K. charts last year.
Across digital and physical formats combined, The Weeknd’s The Highlights was the year’s most popular album in the U.K., followed by Swift’s Midnights and her 1989 (Taylor’s Version) set. Elton John’s Diamonds, which was first released in 2017, ranked at No. 4 thanks to the singer’s farewell tour and high-profile Glastonbury headline performance in the summer.
Harry Styles’ Harry’s House secured fifth place in the overall year-end albums tally, while Barbie: The Album was the year’s top compilation.
BPI’s preliminary year-end report, published Wednesday (Jan. 3), doesn’t include financial sales data. Instead, it uses Official Charts Company data to measure U.K. music consumption in terms of volume.
The London-based organization will publish its full year-end report, including recorded music revenues, later this year. Another British trade body, the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA), is due to report on annual music retail spending later this month.
The U.K. is the world’s third biggest recorded music market behind the U.S. and Japan with sales of just under $1.7 billion in trade value, according to IFPI’s 2023 Global Music Report.
U.K. OFFICIAL ARTIST ALBUMS CHART 2023
1. The Weeknd – The Highlights
2. Taylor Swift – Midnights
3. Taylor Swift – 1989 (Taylor’s Version)
4. Elton John – Diamonds
5. Harry Styles – Harry’s House
6. Fleetwood Mac – 50 Years – Don’t Stop
7. Eminem – Curtain Call – The Hits
8. SZA – SOS
9. Arctic Monkeys – AM
10. ABBA – Gold – Greatest Hits
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U.K. TOP TEN OFFICIAL SINGLES CHART 2023
1. Miley Cyrus – Flowers
2. Dave & Central Cee – Sprinter
3. RAYE ft 070 Shake – Escapism
4. Taylor Swift – Anti-Hero
5. Calvin Harris & Ellie Goulding – Miracle
6. Rema – Calm Down
7. SZA – Kill Bill
8. PinkPantheress – Boy’s A Liar
9. Harry Styles – As It Was
10. Libianca – People
Increasing competition from other international markets is placing the United Kingdom’s long-held success as one of the world’s biggest exporters of music under threat, warns a new report from umbrella trade organization UK Music.
In 2022, music exports contributed 4 billion pounds ($4.9 billion) to Britain’s economy, according to the organization’s annual This Is Music study, which measures the economic impact of the U.K. music industry across live, record sales, publishing, merch and public performance revenue.
That figure is a 60% rise on 2021’s export total of 2.5 billion pounds ($3 billion at today’s currency rates) by Billboard’s calculations, although UK Music says that changes in the way that it collates data means that direct comparisons with previous years are not an accurate measure of growth.
Overall, the U.K. music industry contributed 6.7 billion pounds ($8.2 billion) to the country’s economy in 2022, up from 4 billion pounds in 2021, based upon the gross value estimates of money generated through music sales, concerts, recording studios, touring and music tourism — roughly equivalent to pre-tax profits and salaries.
According to figures released earlier this year by U.K. labels trade body BPI, the global success of Harry Styles, Glass Animals and Ed Sheeran helped British music exports climb to a record high of 709 million pounds ($910 million) in 2022 — the highest annual total since BPI began analyzing labels’ overseas income in 2000.
Whereas BPI’s numbers are based purely upon label trade revenue, UK Music’s export figures comprise all income generated overseas by British music companies and creators, including recorded music, publishing, international touring by homegrown artists and foreign visitors attending U.K. gigs and festivals (so-called music tourism).
UK Music reports that over 37 million people attended live concerts and festivals in the country in 2022, while the total number of people working in the British music industry last year rose to 210,000, up from 145,000 in 2021 when the coronavirus pandemic was still affecting the sector. In 2019, there were 197,000 people employed across the U.K. music business, states the This Is Music report.
Meanwhile, nontraditional revenue generated by audio-visual projects, such as concert films and biopics, as well as income from music-related TV productions and deals with hardware manufacturers, were up 96% year on year, reports UK Music, which declined to provide financial figures, but said it was an example of a small-but-growing income stream as the industry diversifies.
UK Music interim chief executive Tom Kiehl says the sector’s return to growth after the downturn brought on by the pandemic is welcome news, but cautioned that more support is needed from government if the United Kingdom is to maintain its longstanding status as the world’s second-biggest exporter of music, behind the United States.
“The U.K.’s competitors are increasingly well funded and can often count on far more support from their governments,” says Kiehl. He identified South Korea, Australia and Canada as three rival markets where national governments have invested heavily in music and cultural export offices to help grow their overseas markets.
In response, UK Music is calling upon British policymakers to implement a number of measures to boost growth, including tax credits for music businesses and securing a post-Brexit cultural touring agreement with the European Union.
“Otherwise,” warns Kiehl, “we risk the U.K. being left behind in the global music race.”
The United Kingdom is the world’s third-biggest recorded-music market behind the United States and Japan, with sales of just over $1.8 billion in trade value, according to IFPI’s 2022 Global Music Report.
A “groundbreaking” scheme that gives concertgoers the chance to own a share of their favorite grassroots music venues has acquired its first property in the United Kingdom, delivering a much-needed boost to a struggling sector that’s still yet to fully recover from the pandemic.
The 100-capacity The Snug, located in the town of Atherton, just a few miles outside Manchester, is the first grassroots venue to be purchased as part of the “Own Our Venues” initiative by U.K. charity Music Venue Trust (MVT).
The scheme was launched last May and offers music fans the chance to become investors in small U.K. grassroots venues by purchasing community shares that are then used to buy out commercial landlords, effectively transferring ownership to the trust and local patrons.
To date, more than 1,250 investors have backed the pilot project, raising around £1.5 million ($1.8 million), with Ed Sheeran among its high-profile supporters. Funding has also come from Arts Council England and Arts & Culture Finance, who both contributed an additional £500,000 ($606,000) to the member-owned Music Venue Properties fund.
Share options begin at £200 ($250), although investors under the age of 25 can buy single shares at a discounted rate of £100 ($125). In return, investors receive 3% annual interest, generated through rent returns and more efficient running of the businesses, say organizers. To prevent big companies or corporations from becoming majority owners, shares are non-transferable and cannot be sold or traded with other investors.
Venue properties bought by the Music Venue Properties fund, such as The Snug, are leased back to the current operators at a reduced below-market rate, with venue managers also receiving financial support around maintenance, insurance and repairs.
The Snug’s managing director Rachael Flaszczak said the purchase of the seven-year-old venue “serves as a light of hope that the preservation of grassroots music venues can be done when people pull together to make things happen.”
Music Venue Trust CEO Mark Dayvd tells Billboard the acquisition represents “an amazing step forward” for a grassroots live industry that’s “currently in the middle of a crisis.”
According to the trust, 127 grassroots venues have closed or stopped putting on live music concerts in the United Kingdom in the past 12 months, representing around 16% of its members and depriving new acts of vital spaces to develop their craft in front of live audiences.
In the last 20 years, more than 500 grassroots music venues have shuttered in the United Kingdom, reports the trust, with notable closures including London’s The Marquee, Astoria, 12 Bar Club and Madame Jojos. Contributing factors include rising rents and costs, long-term lack of investment and the gentrification of surrounding areas leading to noise complaints and restrictive licensing conditions.
The pandemic and accompanying shutdown of the live music industry saw the United Kingdom’s grassroots music scene acquire £90 million ($110 million) of new debt, says Dayvd. Underpinning the fragility of the sector, 93% of small-capacity music spaces in the United Kingdom are run by tenants, with most having less than 18 months left on their tenancy agreements, according to MVT’s research.
To try and stop further closures, the trust has identified a further eight venues in U.K. towns and cities that it plans to purchase under what it calls a “world first” public ownership model and is in advanced talks with the landlords of two of those properties, says Dayvd. The trust’s long-term goal is to have a nationwide network of publicly owned properties whose status as music venues is protected for the long-term future.
“Many of the most pressing challenges faced by the sector are solvable by this issue of ownership,” says Dayvd, who wants to grow the number of fund investors to boost its buying power. He’s also keen to see the “Own Our Properties” scheme roll out to other countries where grassroots venue operators are under similar financial pressures.
“We have to accept that grassroots venues, wherever they are in the world, are doing the job of research and development — giving the stage to a young artist who’s written their first song or playing for the first time in front an audience,” says Dayvd. “It’s what pushes the industry forward, and we need to protect that pipeline.”
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Chris Kaba, a known UK Drill rapper, was shot and killed by a Metropolitan Police officer in September 2022 after a high-speed chase in South West London. Reports are now coming forth that the Met Police officer responsible for the death of Chris Kaba has been granted bail after they were initially charged.
We first learned of the Chris Kaba case via a report from The Sun, which shared in its reporting that the rapper was shot dead in Streatham Hill while driving an Audi Q8 that local police connected to an earlier gun incident. Kaba was followed by an unmarked police vehicle before officers boxed the car in. With Kaba trapped by the cars, one officer fired a shot into the front windshield, striking Kaba.
The unnamed officer, known only as NX121 according to a BBC report, was charged formally after an investigation from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) concluded. The officer was held at Westminster Magistrates’ Court but appeared at the Central Criminal Court, known widely in London as the Old Bailey, and was granted bail.
Via a court order, officer NX121 was granted bail release but must alert the court of his living address, surrender his passport, and not apply to travel beyond the nation’s borders. Officer NX121 will appear again in court on December 1 of this year with a possible trial date of September 9 next year.
Kaba, also known as Itch, Madix, or Mad Itch, was a member of the 67 Hip-Hop collective and also worked as a construction worker. The crew has been framed as a criminal gang by Met Police and has faced criticism in the press due to the nature of their lyrics and beef with rival crews.
Chris Kaba was 24.
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Photo: @dimzy6ix7even / Instagram
Urgent action is needed to protect the United Kingdom’s longstanding success as one of the world’s biggest exporters of music, warns a new report from umbrella trade organization UK Music.
In particular, robust copyright laws must be put in place to ensure that creators and rights holders are shielded from the potential impact of artificial intelligence (AI), says the trade body’s “Manifesto for Music,” published Tuesday (Sept. 12), which calls for increased government support to grow the sector.
In 2021, U.K. music exports totaled £2.5 billion ($3.1 billion) — up 10% on the previous year, but still lower than 2019’s pre-pandemic figures — according to data from UK Music. Those export totals are made up of record sales, publishing revenue, overseas touring by British acts and tourism spending by international tourists attending live shows in the United Kingdom.
When it comes to recorded music, hit albums by Harry Styles, Glass Animals and Ed Sheeran helped British music exports climb to a record high of £709 million ($910 million) last year, maintaining the country’s long-held position as the second largest exporter of music globally after the United States, according to labels trade body BPI.
Overall, the United Kingdom is the world’s third biggest recorded music market, as per IFPI rankings, behind the United States and Japan.
However, the growth of streaming in emerging territories such as Latin America, the Middle East and South Korea has eaten into the United Kingdom’s share of the global music market, which has fallen from a peak of 17% in 2015 to 12% in 2022. To arrest that decline, UK Music has published a five-point plan to boost exports, protect venues and studios, and promote diversity.
Among the trade group’s recommendations is the enforcement of strong copyright protections against generative AI systems, including clear labeling and a requirement for AI developers to keep and disclose records of any music works used for training purposes.
UK Music is additionally asking policymakers to introduce specific personality and image rights into the British legal framework — and ensure that AI-generated music is clearly distinguishable from human-created works.
Last month, a U.K. Parliament committee issued its own report on regulating the use of AI technology in the music and creative industries. One of the committee’s key recommendations was for the British government to commit to abandoning plans for a proposed (and since shelved) new text and data mining (TDM) exception that would allow AI companies to freely use copyright-protected works for commercial purposes.
“It’s critical that we ensure AI enables and supports human artistry and creativity, and does not damage it,” said UK Music interim chief executive Tom Kiehl, echoing the committee’s request to rule out any new TDM exceptions.
“Strong copyright and intellectual property protections must be at the center of any approach when it comes to AI,” said Kiehl.
Other recommendations in UK Music’s manifesto include the introduction of a new tax credit — similar to what’s in place in other European markets and some U.S. states — encouraging new music production in the country.
The trade group, which recently saw chief executive Jamie Njoku-Goodwin exit the London-based organization to work for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, is also calling for increased investment in music education and for the government to secure a post-Brexit cultural touring agreement with the European Union that would reduce costs for U.K. acts touring Europe.
“Without action, the U.K. risks being overtaken by countries who are more proactive and ambitious in promoting their music sectors,” said Kiehl.
The United Kingdom’s moves to police the rapidly evolving AI sector come as other countries and jurisdictions, including the United States, China and the European Union, explore their own paths toward regulating the nascent technology.
UK Music chief executive Jamie Njoku-Goodwin has announced he is stepping down after three years at the helm of the British music industry trade body to become director of strategy for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
A date has yet to be announced for Njoku-Goodwin’s exit from the organization, although it is expected to take place imminently. UK Music Deputy chief executive Tom Kiehl will take over from Njoku-Goodwin while the search for a new CEO is underway.
Njoku-Goodwin took over as CEO of UK Music in September 2020, succeeding Michael Dugher. Prior to joining the London-based organization, Njoku-Goodwin worked in politics, serving as a special adviser to former cabinet minister Matt Hancock and the department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.
The first two years of Njoku-Goodwin’s time at UK Music, which represents all sectors of the United Kingdom’s music industry, coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic and saw him campaign for government funding to help prop up the business at a time of national lockdowns and the shutdown of live shows.
In conjunction with other music trade groups, UK Music also lobbied the government to remove barriers to touring in Europe brought about by the country’s exit from the European Union. Those barriers — many of which still exist — include new restrictions for U.K. artists and crews entering Europe (and vice versa for European acts playing the United Kingdom) and increased production costs due to cabotage, carnets, visa and work permit charges.
A recent focus for UK Music has been ensuring that creators and rights holders receive effective protection from artificial intelligence’s (AI) transformative impact on the industry.
Last year, Njoku-Goodwin strongly criticized what he referred to as “dangerous and damaging” plans by the British government allowing AI developers to freely use copyright-protected works, including music, to train their systems without the need for creators and rights holders to provide permission.
Speaking out against the proposals, which were met with a fierce backlash from across the music and creative industries, Njoku-Goodwin — who sits on the board of the London Philharmonic Orchestra — said they “would give the green light to music laundering.”
After further consultation with representatives of the music and media industries, the government announced that it was shelving the proposed text and data mining exceptions in February.
Other issues that UK Music has campaigned for in the past three years include music education and improving diversity and inclusion throughout the industry. The organization has also continued to regularly produce reports on the health of the U.K. music business, including last month’s “Here, There and Everywhere” assessment of the country’s live sector.
“The U.K. music industry is one of this country’s great national assets, and it’s been a privilege to represent it for the past three years,” said Njoku-Goodwin in a statement announcing his departure. “I’m delighted our sector is in much better shape now to take on the challenges and opportunities it faces in the future.”
Paying tribute, UK Music chairman Lord Watson said Njoku-Goodwin had “played a key role” in helping the industry get back on its feet after the struggles of the pandemic and called him “a passionate advocate for our sector.”
A U.K. Parliament committee is calling on the British government to ensure that artificial intelligence (AI) developers are prevented from the free use of copyright-protected musical works for training purposes — and to commit to abandoning much-criticized plans that opponents say would significantly weaken copyright protections for artists and rights holders.
A report from the Culture, Media and Sport (CMS) Committee published Wednesday (Aug. 30) says that any future legislation governing the use of AI technology in the United Kingdom, the world’s third-biggest music market, must not risk “reducing arts and cultural production to mere ‘inputs’ in AI development.”
Committee members also state that urgent action must be taken to improve protections for artists and creators against the misuse of their likenesses, image rights and performances by emerging technologies such as generative AI.
The report comes more than a year after U.K. government body The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) first proposed the introduction of a new text and data mining (TDM) exception allowing AI developers to freely use copyright-protected works for commercial purposes.
Those plans, announced by the IPO last June, gave rights holders no option to opt out of the TDM exception, although they did state that tech developers would still require “lawful access” to any copyright-protected data, enabling rights holders to agree to license fees and charge for access.
The proposals drew strong criticism from across the creative industries, with Jamie Njoku-Goodwin, CEO of umbrella trade body UK Music, describing them as a “green light to music laundering.” In response, the government announced in February that it had listened to the objections and would no longer be proceeding with the original plans.
The CMS Committee welcomed the change of course but warned that the government’s handling “shows a clear lack of understanding of the needs of the U.K.’s creative industries.”
“The chorus of warnings from musicians, authors and artists about the real and lasting harm a failure to protect intellectual property in a world where the influence of AI is growing should be enough for ministers to sit up and take notice,” said CMS Committee chair Dame Caroline Dinenage in a statement.
Dinenage said the government must follow through on its pledge to abandon plans for a text and data mining exception to copyright-protected works and regain the trust of the creative industries by developing “a copyright and regulatory regime that properly protects them” from the potential risks of AI.
The U.K.’s current legal framework, which contains TDM allowances for non-commercial research purposes while also allowing rights holders to commercially license their work, “provides an appropriate balance between innovation and creator rights,” said the committee report.
The U.K.’s moves to police the rapidly evolving AI sector comes as other countries and jurisdictions, including the United States, China and the European Union, explore their own paths toward regulating the nascent technology.
The EU’s Artificial Intelligence Act, which was first proposed in April 2021 and is now being negotiated among politicians in different branches of government, is leading the way as the world’s first comprehensive legislation around AI. It states that generative AI systems will be forced to disclose any content that they produce that is AI-generated — helping differentiate computer-created works from those authored by humans — and provide detailed, publicly available summaries of any copyright-protected music or data they have used for training purposes.
Other provisions in European law, most notably those contained in 2019’s EU Copyright Directive, also deal with AI and text and data mining exceptions of copyrighted content, such as music, although these are more robust than those initially proposed — and since abandoned — by the U.K. government. These EU provisions include allowing rights holders to stop AI systems from using their content for training purposes, or to limit which ones can in order to license that right.
Responding to the CMS Committee’s recommendations, BPI chief executive Jo Twist said it was “essential that artists and rightsholders can work in partnership with technology and that policies do not allow AI to get a free ride, but to always respect human creativity by seeking permission and remunerating the use of creative content.”