Organizations and Advocacy Groups of the Music Business

The music industry is supported by a diverse range of organizations and advocacy groups dedicated to protecting the rights of artists, promoting fair practices, and driving innovation. These entities play crucial roles in shaping the industry’s landscape, from championing independent musicians to addressing legal challenges in the digital age.

Check out our list of key organizations and advocacy groups that are making a significant impact in the music business.

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In this newsletter:

The rapid evolution of AI appears to be outpacing the legal system, as evidenced by a copyright infringement lawsuit against Anthropic, which may not go to trial until 2026.

WIN launches a new annual report, which highlights the organization’s growth and the evolving indie music landscape.

The lawsuit against PRS for Music by Pace Rights Management, the Jesus and Mary Chain, and others is intensifying, with the plaintiffs accusing PRS of making “simply untrue” statements.

Now, the details...

Exploration Weekly - August 16, 2024
Compiled by Ana Berberana

Music Publishers’ Anthropic Copyright Lawsuit Tentatively Set for 2026 Trial

Is the AI space evolving too quickly for the legal system to keep up? It certainly seems so, as music publishers’ high-stakes copyright infringement litigation against Anthropic might not receive a trial until 2026. The involved parties outlined that proposed schedule in a joint case management statement yesterday, about 10 months after Universal Music Publishing Group, Concord, and other music publishers sued Amazon-backed Anthropic. As most probably know, the straightforward-but-important suit, one of several ongoing copyright actions against generative AI developers, centers on the training process behind Anthropic’s Claude chatbot. In short, the publisher plaintiffs say the product infringed on their protected compositions during said training process and in its outputs when responding to certain user prompts. Like other AI players, Anthropic is adamant that its training maneuvers fall under the fair use banner. It will be a while before we have definitive answers to the significant questions raised by those clashing positions. Though many moving parts and a far-off timetable mean nothing is set in stone, the publishers themselves want a trial date between mid-March and April 1st of 2026, the aforementioned case management statement shows. Anthropic, for its part, is calling for a slightly nearer trial that, with a start date between December 2nd of 2025 and January 13th of 2026, still wouldn’t initiate for another 16 months from now. Particularly in light of AI’s breakneck evolution, there’s no telling what the technology will look like – or be capable of – at that point.

Global Independent-Labels Body WIN Launches Annual Report

Indie labels body WIN has launched its annual report, and it’s a snapshot of the changes that both WIN and the indie world are experiencing. WIN now operates in 43 territories across Australasia, Asia, Europe, North America, and South America, representing over 8,000 music businesses through 37 national and regional associations. Its board has expanded to reflect this scope. It also launched the new WIN Supporters program, where “businesses demonstrate their support for the independent community, as well as showing their commitment to work hand in hand with it as drivers of change.” Bandcamp, marketing firm Marauder, and music tech company Random Sounds are its first partners. WIN also set out its principles for the use of Generative AI, which prioritize the human creator, and calls for strengthened laws as well as increased transparency and accountability. It also announced that Domino Records and Sentric Music have joined RDx, the performance rights data portal which is a JV between IFPI and WIN.

Songwriter Lawsuit Against PRS for Music Intensifies As Open Letter Takes Aim At Fee Structure & Transparency

The lawsuit filed against PRS for Music by Pace Rights Management, the Jesus and Mary Chain, and others is intensifying, as the plaintiffs are calling out the defendant’s “simply untrue” statements and wider operations. London’s Pace Rights Management voiced this and different qualms with PRS for Music in an open letter, after the UK-based collecting society fired back against the suit shortly after its June filing. Pace, King Crimson founder Robert Fripp, and the Jesus and Mary Chain’s Jim and William Reid in their complaint targeted PRS for Music’s alleged transparency shortcomings and live performance terms. Specifically, the plaintiffs expressed the belief that in practice, said terms benefit commercially prominent PRS members at the expense of all others. On cue, PRS refuted the allegations, maintaining that it had “worked extremely hard to simplify our processes…which Pace has consistently failed to comply or engage with.” That alleged lack of compliance (though Pace says it “has no process to comply or engage” as a non-member) “resulted in royalties being unnecessarily withheld from PRS members for the live performance of their works at concerts,” the Nexus Program developer indicated. The parties behind the action have addressed PRS for Music’s positions with the mentioned open letter, in part so “members can have some much needed transparency” on the organization’s activities and spending.

AI Music Startup Lemonaide Introduces New Collaboration Tool Promising ‘Ethical’ AI Models

Lemonaide, which describes itself as an “artist-first creative AI” platform, has launched a new tool called ‘Collab Club,’ that allows professional producers to train their own AI models using their own catalogs. The launch comes a little over a year after Lemonaide and beat buying and selling platform BeatStars struck a strategic alliance with the aim “to establish a precedent for ethical AI business models in the music industry.” Lemonaide says it seeks to address the challenges in the AI-generated music landscape, which it says is currently divided between ethically trained models with limited creative potential and unethical models that excel in quality but exploit artists’ works. Founded in 2021 by hip-hop artist Michael “MJ” Jacob, Lemonaide says its Collab Club platform “sits at the center of this generative-AI music Venn Diagram.” The company claims to combine ethical practices with quality output by producing “fairly trained high-resolution loops that are ready to be made into art by professional producers.” “All AI models are massive sets of data. We’re taking the bet that people don’t just want to work with an AI model; they want to work with creative materials and creative people,” Jacob said in a statement. “Lemonaide Collab Club connects creators with some of today’s best producers — building a strong creative community while giving artists agency in the AI space.” “My ultimate goal for Lemonaide is to create something that a kid stumbles across and finds the joy in making music,” Jacob added.

Random Ramblings


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