The purpose of the principles is to ensure that the training, licensing and commercialisation of music-making generative AI models is achieved in a way that respects the rights of CMM’s members (UK songwriters, composers, artists, musicians, producers and music managers).  CMM recognises the benefits of AI to the music industry, but copyright law must be respected.

On top of legal obligations, the CMM proposes five fundamental objectives for AI technology companies and rightsholders. These include securing the explicit consent of individual music-makers before music is used to train AI models, respecting the publicity, personality and personal data rights of music makers (CMM calls on the government to clarify and strengthen these rights), fairly sharing the financial rewards of music AI, including from music generated by AI models trained on their works, with music makers (who grant permission for the use of their works), consulting with music makers on the development of  licensing models between AI companies and rightsholders, clearly labelling AI-generated works as such, being fully transparent about music that has been used to train AI models (keeping and making available complete records of datasets) and rightsholders being transparent about licensing deals negotiated with AI companies and what works those deals include. Reports suggest that the principle of obtaining consent for the use of music in AI would apply even when the artists and songwriters do not own the copyright in the works in question.

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