2026-06-25

Nordic Music Performers Challenge Record Labels’ AI Partnerships:

Built on Our Work – Without Our Consent

The undersigned European unions and organisations representing hundreds of
thousands of music performers across Europe express serious concern about the
growing number of AI partnerships between record labels, AI developers and digital music
platforms, including Spotify.

Across the music industry, music catalogues are being licensed for AI training, synthetic
content generation and other AI applications. Deals are being negotiated without the
meaningful involvement of the performers whose works, performances, voices and
identities create the value being licensed.

Our concern is not innovation. It is the exclusion of creators from decisions about their
work and how it is being used in new technologies without their consent and proper
remuneration. At a time when European institutions are calling for stronger safeguards on
consent, transparency and human oversight in AI, major commercial agreements are
being concluded without meaningful performer participation or approval.

Particularly concerning is the fact that Universal Music Group (UMG) has already formed
AI partnerships with companies such as Udio and Spotify while simultaneously seeking
new AI-related permissions from performers through updated contractual provisions. The
attempt to secure new AI-related rights after such partnerships have already been
established reinforces the fact that existing recording agreements do not provide a clear
or sufficient basis for these uses.

Existing recording agreements were never negotiated with generative AI business
models in mind and it should not be assumed that they authorise the use of
performers’ works, performances, voices or identities for generative AI purposes. We
therefore reject any assumption that existing contracts or industry arrangements
provide such authorisation.

The same concern applies to non-featured performers (musicians), whose rights are
typically not subject to written agreements that would authorise labels to represent
them for such purposes. We therefore firmly object to any attempt by labels to invoke
or claim authority over the rights of non-featured performers in the context of
generative AI licensing.

More broadly, these developments expose a growing imbalance in the music industry. AI
agreements are being negotiated without meaningful performer participation, while there
is little evidence that performers will share fairly in the value generated from the
exploitation of their work.

Music is not merely data. It is human expression, creativity and culture. The future of AI in
music must be built on consent, transparency and fair remuneration.

Our Call to the Music Industry

Music performers must be properly represented in all decisions concerning generative
AI. The future of AI in music requires transparent licensing, meaningful consent, clear
attribution and fair remuneration. Collective agreements remain the most legitimate and
sustainable framework for ensuring that creators share fairly in the value generated from
their work.

We call on record labels, AI developers, digital platforms, policymakers and the wider
music industry to engage directly with representative unions and collective
management organisations to ensure that AI in music is governed through collectively
negotiated frameworks based on consent, transparency, fair remuneration and respect
for artistic rights, human creativity and cultural integrity.
As AI develops, music performers must retain meaningful control over the use of their
works, performances, voices and identities.

All the best,
The undersigned Nordic artists’, musicians’ and performers’ unions and organisations

Sara Indiro
Chair, Danish Artists Union and Performex

Thomas Sandberg
Chair, Danish Musicians’ Union

Marius Øvrebø-Engemoen
CEO, GramArt

Trine Kaae Jorst
Head of legal, Performex

Mia Kari
Chair, Finnish Musicians’ Union

Hans Ole Rian
President, CREO

Stefan Lagrell
CEO, Swedish Artists’ and Musicians’
Interest Organisation (SAMI)

Karin Inde
Chair, Swedish Musicians’ Union

Gunnar Jönsson
Chair, and the Swedish Union of
Professional Musicians (Symf)

Gunnar Hrafnsson
Chair, Icelandic Musicians’ Union (FÍH)