AI in the music industry: UK musicians warn of threats to their livelihoods

A song written, rehearsed, recorded and performed. For generations making music has looked something like this. It takes people with talent, skill, time and dedication. But now it can look like this. I'm asking an AI program to write me a song and giving it a brief theme, a sample of my voice, But with no musicians, no recording studio, no instruments, an AI can make the music video too, doing away with an entire industry. Singer-songwriter Tom A. Smith has spent years developing his sound, writing hundreds of songs along the way. AI companies have trained their programs on the work of artists like him. It's taken away opportunities, it's taken away something that you dedicate your whole life to and absolutely love. I always say, especially with songwriting, sounds, tones, instruments, effects, don't make music timeless. It's the personalities that wrote the song in the first place. And that's the question facing Britain's music industry. How do you embrace the technology without undermining all the people who make it valuable? Manchester helped shape British popular music, with bands like Oasis, The Smiths, Joy Division. Now it's at the centre of a push to protect creative industries in the age of AI. At a summit called Beyond the Music, industry leaders are demanding clearer rules on how creative work can be used and how the people behind it should be credited and paid. A fair deal is anything better than what we have right now, where we have big tech companies who have come to the music industry and scrape the data with no permission, with no authority. So a fair deal would look like having ownership of IP right the way through every layer of the digital platforms that music goes through. They're calling this framework the Manchester Principles, requiring permission to use creative work, transparency about where it comes from, proper credit and ways to enforce those rights. The government agrees AI should augment human creativity, not replace it. But for many artists, the future of making a living from their work remains uncertain. Charlie-Angela Al Jazeera, Manchester.