July 8, 2024, NEW YORK CITY–The National Music Council of the United States (NMC) has issued an educational, legislative-based statement outlining the general consensus views of the American music creators, copyright owners and educators that constitute its broad membership, concerning both the opportunities and the existential dangers posed by the rapid introduction of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) systems throughout the U.S. and global music communities.
With billions of dollars and the future of American musical culture at stake, NMC states that it is seeking to provide the basis through the attached statement for a more informed and far-reaching dialogue among creators, copyright owners, business leaders, technologists, legislators, students, educators and members of the public regarding the need for measured legislative action and governmental oversight to ensure fairness and equity in the GenAI marketplace.
According to NMC Chair Charles J. Sanders, “GenAI has the capacity – using pre-existing copyrighted works to produce new derivatives – to enhance human musical expression and public enjoyment of the musical arts through fairness in voluntary licensing, or to cause long standing, crushing and potentially irreparable damage to musical creativity, commerce and culture. Our goal is to support the best possible legislative outcomes for our organizational members and their constituencies, leading to ever-increasing advancement of human-centric musical excellence, progress, equity and cultural preservation around the world.” NMC President Dr. James Weaver adds “the issues covered in the document include the general principles of consent, credit, fair compensation, disclosure, record keeping, and a necessarily narrow application of any exceptions to infringement, limited to only certain, non-commercial exemptions in the area of education.”
Dr. David Sanders, NMC’s Executive Director, expressed his hope that the statement will help facilitate rapid, legislative progress toward protecting the rights of creators, copyright administrators and educators through cooperative discussion. “Our paper is intended as an educational primer designed to demonstrate both support of our membership for AI technology in general, but insistence in the context of GenAI on respect for the legal rights of the creative community – and for the principles of diversity, equity and inclusiveness which our community considers very high priorities.”
NMC is the Congressionally-chartered, educational umbrella organization for the broad spectrum of US music community advocacy groups. Founded in 1940, NMC’s membership is today comprised of almost fifty leading American trade organizations representing four distinct categories of music community interests: those of music creators; musical artists & performers; music copyright owners & administrators; and, music educators. In all cases and on every issue, each member organization explicitly retains the authority to speak independently on its own behalf, regardless of whether the views it expresses differ from those of NMC and/or other NMC members. Click here to read the GEN AI statement. For more information on NMC, please visit musiccouncil.org.
On June 14th, the National Music Council of the United States honored composer, multi-instrumentalist, and music ambassador David Amram with the prestigious American Eagle Award at the organization’s 40th annual ceremony in New York City at the Music Publishers Association annual meeting and awards luncheon.
A genuine polymath, David Amram is regarded as an expert in more musical genres than any other artist in the world, perhaps in history. He plays more than 35 instruments, has composed more than 100 well-received classical works, conducted 75 of the world’s great orchestras, and has been a soloist with more than 40 orchestras. Amram introduced the French Horn to jazz, was Jack Kerouac’s musical collaborator for twelve years, composed two operas, scored twenty-five films, composed music for twenty-five Broadway shows, and has worked with artists as diverse as Leonard Bernstein, Bob Dylan, Lionel Hampton, Odetta, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, and Eugene Ormandy.
The award to Amram was presented by Grammy, Emmy, and Peabody award-winning singer-songwriter Tom Chapin, “in recognition of his longstanding, unique, and global contributions to the creation, performance, and appreciation of the musical arts, and in celebration of his pioneering work as an American musical ambassador for peace and culture throughout the world.” Chapin charmed the crowd with a song he penned in tribute to Amram, a funny and touching tribute that the awardee adored.
The US Patent and Trademark Office announcement, will be holding a public listening session on AI and IP, including copyright, at Loyola Law School in LA, on March 27 (both in person and remotely). The session will include representation from the Copyright Office and feature panel discussions by experts in the field of patent, trademark, and copyright law that focus on:
- a comparison of copyright and patent law approaches to the type and level of human contribution needed to satisfy authorship and inventorship requirements;
- ongoing copyright litigation involving generative AI; and
- a discussion of laws and policy considerations surrounding name, image, and likeness (NIL) issues, including the intersection of NIL and generative AI.
For more information about PTO’s work with stakeholders on AI, see its AI and Emerging Technology Events page.
The National Music Council weighed in on the International Property Organization (WIPO) Intergovernmental Committee (“IGC”) discussions on traditional cultural expressions. Read the full comments here.
The Reimagining Inclusive Arts Education Act, introduced by David Scott (GA-13) seeks to increase access to arts education and arts therapies for students with disabilities. Recognizing the benefits of arts education for children with disabilities, this legislation would provide grants to further train educators and arts therapists working with those students. Specifically, this legislation would;
- Direct the Secretary of Education to establish the Inclusive Arts Education Grant Program
- Eligible Entities for Funding: Local Education Agencies (LEAs), State Education Agencies (SEAs), or a partnership between an LEA/SEA and an Institution of Higher Education or Non-Profit Organizations
- Priority: Schools receiving Title I funds are given priority in the grant application process.
- Eligible uses of grant funding:
- Promoting curricula, best practices, professional development for arts educators and creative arts therapists in elementary and secondary schools that would;
- Eligible Entities for Funding: Local Education Agencies (LEAs), State Education Agencies (SEAs), or a partnership between an LEA/SEA and an Institution of Higher Education or Non-Profit Organizations
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- Increase access and improve inclusion of children with disabilities in arts education programs.
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- Adapt classroom materials and lessons to accommodate children with disabilities.
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- Provide a definition of “Creative Arts Therapy” that specifically enumerates music as an available medium and highlights the social and emotional benefits of the arts.
On January 10, 2024, Reps. María Elvira Salazar (R-FL) and Madeleine Dean (D-PA) introduced the No Artificial Intelligence Fake Replicas And Unauthorized Duplications (No AI FRAUD) Act. The bill establishes a federal framework to protect Americans’ individual right to their likeness and voice against AI-generated fakes and forgeries.
The No AI FRAUD Act establishes a federal solution with baseline protections for all Americans by:
- Reaffirming that everyone’s likeness and voice is protected, giving individuals the right to control the use of their identifying characteristics;
- Empowering individuals to enforce this right against those who facilitate, create, and spread AI frauds without their permission; and
- Balancing the rights against First Amendment protections to safeguard speech and innovation.
Nearly 300 artists, songwriters, actors and other creators have voiced their support of the No AI FRAUD Act.
To send an email to your officials voicing your support, visit the Human Artistry Campaign’s “Contact Congress Portal.”
We’ve all seen the recent headlines from around the world. Musicians, songwriters, and composers attacked as rabble-rousers and enemies of the state. Singers arrested, their performances banned as un-patriotic or sacrilegious. We’ve even seen lethal attacks committed against music creators for refusing to perform. And just a few months ago, we saw legal action instituted by a foreign global power against the performance of domestic protest music on a global basis.
No matter our individual political or musical affiliations, the mission of the American music community is clear. We must quickly and effectively formulate ways to help curb this international trend of governments singling out artists and music creators for global punishment, due in large measure to fears over the inherent political power of music.
By way of example, one recent instance illustrating this distressing pattern is currently playing out in Hong Kong. There, amid civil unrest in 2019 over Chinese Government efforts to crack down on what it deems as speech dangerous to national security, a pro-independence leader known only by the pseudonym “Thomas dgx yhl” penned a song known as “Glory to Hong Kong.”
The composition was immediately embraced by Hong Kong rights protesters, translated into various languages, and eventually widely recorded and electronically distributed. Before long, those recordings were being played not only on the Internet, but in Hong Kong shopping malls and at sporting events and other gatherings, prompting public sing-alongs that have increasingly alarmed Chinese Government officials in both Hong Kong and Beijing.[1]
A little over six months ago, the Beijing-aligned Government of Hong Kong announced it had heard enough. Having previously banned the secessionist anthem “Liberate Hong Kong” after protests began in 2019, the Government went to court last June 2023, seeking an even broader injunction against “Glory to Hong Kong.” That motion, if granted, would have barred performance, broadcast, and distribution of the song throughout China, potentially leading to the punishment of Chinese citizens –and companies merely operating in China– for violating the ban anywhere in the world). According to the Government’s court submissions, the song’s lyrics are meant to provoke secessionist acts in violation of Chinese law, and the court should act to eliminate the dangerous confusion that has been caused by the “mistaken use” of the song in place of the official Chinese National Anthem at over 800 Hong Kong and international events so far.[2]
As is often the case when governments attempt to ban musical works, the song instantly skyrocketed in popularity in China and around the world. Within days of the court filing, “Glory to Hong Kong” topped the Apple iTunes charts. That development, however, may have resulted in further action by the embarrassed Governments of Hong Kong and China. The original version of the song recorded by DGX Music (presumably related to Thomas dgx yhl) was suddenly pulled (at least temporarily) from global music streaming platforms such as Spotify, Apple Music, Facebook and Instagram’s Reels system.
Obviously, what we are witnessing in real time is another in a nearly endless series of attempts by governments and powerful interests around the world –representing all political persuasions– to forcibly remove politically contentious musical works from the public sphere and punish their creators and performers.
This past March 2023, NMC, in conjunction with the Paris-based International Music Council (IMC), explored the historical roots of this phenomenon in the hopes of helping the world-wide music community to fashion strategies for ensuring more effective, speech-related protections for music creators in the future. NMC’s extensive briefing papers for the symposium trace the long litany of repression and coercion against individual creators who used their music to protest social and political injustice, including the 1973 murder in Chile of folksinger Victor Jara by the extreme right-wing Pinochet regime, the genocide carried out against Cambodian musicians and composers by the extreme left-wing Khmer Rouge Regime in the mid-late 1970s, and the attempted erasure of Native American/First Nation/Aboriginal music and culture by Constitutional democracies including the United States, Canada, the UK and Australia—efforts that over the course of centuries often resulted in the brutal deaths of those who resisted.[3]
Music-based repression and coercion, NMC concluded, are clearly global problems unlimited by either their political or geographic origins:
Music’s dual, facile ability to serve as both a powerful tool of propaganda and as an existential threat to power structures and political leaders has made it a prime focus of nervous governmental concern over the entire span of history….Music creators and performers have not only been frequently subject to pressure to conform and participate in governmental propaganda efforts, but also to repressive actions up to and including murder to enforce the silence of those dangerous, high-profile individuals who will not comply. In many cases, this effectively neuters the most persuasive voices of protest, while at the same time setting an example of what happens to those less visible citizens who choose dissent. The repression of music and creators is a government’s way of warning all of its people, “if this is what we’ll do to them, imagine what we’ll do to you.”
For the American music creator community, initially it’s that last point that must be our paramount concern. While we may argue over whether certain musical expressions (other than outright hate speech) constitute patriotism or treason, it is incumbent upon us to champion the position that violence and imprisonment for peacefully expressing unpopular views should not be imposed on any person by any government, anywhere. Though speech freedom advocates may argue for broader efforts to protect free musical expression –and in the future that may come– job one is to protect the lives and liberties of music creators who have been singled out today for political punishment.
How can we accomplish that duty? At the NMC symposium, international experts and activists such as Ole Reitof of UNESCO, Julie Trébault of the Artists at Risk Coalition, Mark Ludwig of the Terezin Music Foundation, Dr. Ahmad Sarmast of the Afghanistan National Institute of Music, and Arn Chorn Pond of the Cambodian Living Arts organization, all agreed on the opportunities for the US music community to protect fellow, global music creators and performers from official repression by speaking out in appropriate ways. Their advice may be distilled to three basic principles:
First, do no harm. This Hippocratic starting point for every effort to assist requires that all international actions must be carefully calibrated to avoid backlash against the endangered individual or group, and should be undertaken only in consultation with those knowledgeable about the local intricacies related to each incident.
Second, take action by shining a spotlight in the United States on the most egregious cases of music suppression wherever in the world they take place. Write letters to the White House, to Congress, and to the US State Department and the US Trade Representative concerning individual cases, requesting that the US Government take appropriate steps to save the lives and freedoms of those at risk. (Other actions may be contemplated, but only after the “no harm” principle has been fully strategized).
Third, for those not willing or unable to take such actions, lend support to organizations engaged directly in protecting the lives and liberties of members of the music community around the world.[4]
Artistic activism and the defense of it will never be an act of courage devoid of risk. The ability in the US to speak out on such issues principally without fear of government reprisal, however, places on us a special responsibility to shine that brighter light on these escalating injustices and attacks. Our community’s responsibilities are to ensure that such anti-democratic activities not remain hidden in the shadows, no matter where in the world they occur—including within our own borders.
If history has taught us one thing about the persecution of artists and creators, it is that silence is neither an effective nor an acceptable strategy for putting an end to it.
Charles J. Sanders
Chair
The National Music Council of the United States
[1] An English language version of the song is accessible at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yjLlYNFKCg.
[2] Hong Kong, a former British protectorate the rule over which was transferred to Beijing in 1997, has continued to maintain its own political and economic systems for the past quarter-century. Within the past decade, however, the Government of China has concentrated its efforts on bringing Hong Kong more closely in line with Beijing’s governing philosophies—including the stricter control of political speech. In its submission to the court, the Government pre-emptively sought to quash accusations of censorship by asserting that Beijing “respects and values the rights and freedoms protected by the Basic Law (including freedom of speech), but freedom of speech is not absolute…. The application pursues the legitimate aim of safeguarding national security and is necessary, reasonable, legitimate, and consistent with the Bill of Rights….”
[3] See, https://www.musiccouncil.org/music-politics-history/. The author of this statement was also the author of the Briefing Papers on behalf of the NMC.
[4] For a list of some non-profit organizations engaged in such activities, see, https://www.musiccouncil.org/protecting-free-speech-in-the-global-music-landscape/