The UK’s Council of Music Makers has shot back at the major labels’ approaches to the streaming industry and AI.

To start the year, Warner Music Group and Universal Music Group laid out their optimistic ideals for 2024. The two major labels spoke on the changes within the industry with a positive spin on their place within it.

Warner CEO Robert Kyncl hailed the changes to streaming revenues that we saw last year from Spotify and Deezer. Meanwhile, Universal CEO Lucian Grainge took a less subtle approach by demanding changes to streaming compensation.

The UK’s Council of Music Makers (CMM) are unhappy, though. They state that the big industry memos don’t recognise the struggles within the music industry. They write: “For many professional music-makers these are incredibly challenging times.”

They criticise the changes to streaming revenues which they say were negotiated by “a few major players” despite their effect on the whole industry. They urge: “The record companies must enter into a frank and honest conversation about the inequities in streaming which are caused by their policies – especially those that disadvantage the music-makers behind the industry’s incredibly valuable catalogue. “

The CMM also claim that “the same mistakes made in streaming are now being made in AI”. Possibly citing the recent roundtable arranged by the UK Government to discuss legislation for protecting artists from AI. They critiqued the discussions for providing an unbalanced number of seats for major labels compared to independent representatives of all arts.

The CMM shot out at current discussions changing the shape of the music industry. They wrote: “The major players are developing business models in secret without properly consulting the music-maker community, while claiming to be champions of human creativity.”

Progress is being made to protect artists from AI globally. The US Congress recently proposed their second act of legislation to introduce legal protection for unconsented use of artists’ content. The EU have pushed forward an act of provisions to protect music. Just this week, the UK Government reneged on a copyright exemption for using content to train AI.

However it is clear that, at least according to the CMM, there is lots more still to do for the independent music industry.