Portuguese artists call on EU for more protection and AI regulation
The campaign, entitled #StayTrueToTheAct, includes 17 Portuguese artists and seeks to sensitise European policymakers "to the urgency of ensuring that AI systems respect intellectual property rules".
The movement is based on the creation and dissemination of video messages by musicians from all over Europe, who are calling on the European Commission to legislate to hold AI companies accountable for the way they use copyrighted material to train their models.
These artists argue that the "European Union must guarantee an ecosystem where technological innovation and the creative market can thrive in balance".
A post shared by IFPI (@ifpi_org)
Among the signatories of the movement are names such as Calema, Dino d'Santiago, Diogo Piçarra and Pedro Abrunhosa, who filmed videos justifying the need to protect artists in the face of the unbridled development of this technology.
"The creative act is perhaps the most human of acts. It is based on experience, touch, closeness, intuition, fear, all emotions, all feelings, but above all it is a salvation from the blackness, the hell that life often imposes," explains Pedro Abrunhosa.
"A generative artificial intelligence is not allowed to vampirise these emotions and mimic, to parrot an amalgam of deep human feelings and make them its own, as if it created them itself. I do not authorise my music, my image, to be used to train the parrot of generative artificial intelligence and I therefore call on the European Commission to respect human dignity and culture and to enforce the artificial intelligence act, which has already been consensually approved," he explains in the published video.
The movement is supported by artists from different European countries. Alejandro Sanz is one of the Spanish artists taking part in the campaign which is geared towards calls for transparency and consent.
A post shared by IFPI (@ifpi_org)
Artists fear weakening of European AI law
In June 2024, the European Union adopted the world's first rules on artificial intelligence, which set out various transparency requirements for generative Artificial Intelligence, including the disclosure of the content used to train the respective models.
However, they explain that the bloc is now working to put the law into practice, running the risk of "watering down the legislation by not holding AI companies accountable".
The European artists' appeal is for the European Commission to stick to the law originally passed and defend their rights.
The current campaign was launched by Ipfi - the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, with which the Portuguese copyright association Audiogest has joined.
The movement is still open to all European artists who wish to join and thus give voice to this cause.
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