Performer group demands opt-in consent on every AI deal

The audio task

A performing artist, as distinct from a songwriter or composer, wants to know whether a label's newly announced AI licensing deal actually requires the artist's own sign-off before their recorded performance is used to train or generate AI music. The Featured Artists Coalition, the UK trade body for performers, addresses that gap directly on its own site, thefac.org, rather than only through general statements about creativity.

What the documents show

A 6 November 2025 post from the Council Of Music Makers, a coalition the FAC's site describes as bringing together the Ivors Academy, Featured Artists Coalition, Musicians' Union, Music Producers Guild and Music Managers Forum, sets out 'three non-negotiables' it says platforms and rightsholders must respect: explicit, opt-in consent before a recording or song enters any AI licensing deal; full control over how music is used on both the training input and the generated output; and fair compensation from all AI income, including lump sums, equity and legal settlements, communicated transparently. The post responds specifically to a Universal Music Group licensing deal with AI platform Udio and a Spotify partnership on 'artist-first AI music products.' An earlier 1 May 2024 post on the same site references a prior five-principle version of the coalition's AI position issued alongside a UK All-Party Parliamentary Group report on AI in music.

Rights status

This is a coalition advocacy statement addressed to record labels, publishers and AI companies, not a governing law or a specific artist's contract term. The FAC's own page states that record label consent commitments announced so far, including Universal's pledge to seek consent for voice-imitation and song-incorporation cases, leave other AI training scenarios uncovered, and calls that gap unwelcome; it does not state that any specific licensing deal is unlawful.

What to check before you use it

This is an editorial checklist. A featured artist should check their own recording and publishing contracts for whether they already grant a label discretion over AI licensing, since the FAC's page states many existing contracts predate AI revenue streams entirely. Anyone assessing a label's 'artist-first AI' announcement should check whether it specifies opt-in consent for training as well as for generated output, since the coalition's post treats those as two separate requirements, not one.

• Does my existing recording contract address AI training and AI-generated output as revenue categories at all?
• Does a given AI licensing announcement cover training-input consent, output consent, or only one of the two?
• How does the compensation structure disclose lump-sum, equity and settlement shares to the individual performer?

The coalition's three non-negotiables give performers a specific checklist for evaluating a label's AI announcement, but the FAC's own reporting treats current industry deals as only partially meeting them, not as already compliant.