21/01/2026
It might not be the most well-known of the diverse range of income sources musicians need to make ends meet, but the use of music as background music in shops, restaurants, and other businesses represents a major part of the income authors, performers, and producers receive through their CMOs.
And here too, AI plays a major role. Recent research has shown that the potential loss for our human musicians could be as much as 25%.
Our General-Secretary Ioan Kaes participated in a panel at ESNS 2026 to discuss what our sector can do.
🔷 Use research such as the Music360 project to prove with hard data the value of music for businesses, for their customers and their staff.
🔷 ©️ Use copyright and related rights to challenge the claim that AI music constitutes a new kind of royalty-free music. AI music models are shallow and meaningless without their training data. Fair remuneration of its human suppliers is a fundamental principle for a level playing field.
🔷 Look beyond your own playing field and acknowledge the issues for what they are. When your sector is confronted with a new player that uses hashtag prices and flouts the rules of fair competition, the government must intervene, just as it does with other sectors.
Thank you very much to Lykle de Vries for the moderation and to hashtag Verlegh, Frank Lucassen and Rolf Dröge for the discussions.
