Björn Ulvaeus in México
"Vivimos un momento desafiante para la industria creativa”: Björn Ulvaeus
El presidente de la Asamblea General de la Confederación Internacional de Sociedades de Autores y Compositores (CISAC) destacó la importancia de mantener la protección al creador ante el avance tecnológico y el surgimiento de la inteligencia artificial
El presidente de Cisac | Octavio Hoyos
Adriana Jiménez Rivera
Ciudad de México / 03.06.2023 10:19:29
Inteligencia artificial y streaming fueron los temas clave que se debatieron durante la primera Asamblea General de la Confederación Internacional de Sociedades de Autores y Compositores (CISAC) que se realiza en México; en la cual Björn Ulvaeus, presidente de la CISAC, precisó “vivimos un momento emocionante y desafiante para la industria creativa, por los avances tecnológicos que se están dando” y que han dado origen a la inteligencia artificial y al streaming.
Razón por la que precisó la intención de seguir ejerciendo el propósito de la CISAC de “apoyar y defender al creador”, ante el surgimiento de nuevos modelos que retoman las obras de sus representados.
“No nos podemos quedar sentados. Tengamos que ser líderes en las soluciones y las soluciones para los desafíos que generan la presencia de la Inteligencia artificial y el streaming tienen que ser globales porque las inteligencias artificiales no conocen fronteras”.
https://www.milenio.com/espectaculos/musica/vivimos-desafiante-industria-creativa-bjorn-ulvaeus
CISAC President Björn Ulvaeus addressed the 2023 CISAC General Assembly in Mexico City with a compelling speech to creators and societies from around the world. Below is his address:
Good morning, everyone. I am delighted to be here today at the CISAC general assembly in Mexico. It has taken a long time to get here. Three years of pandemic confined us to a grey life of zoom calls and virtual meetings.
But finally, colour has returned to the CISAC world, in the form of human and social interaction. And yes, it is really me in flesh and blood standing here, I assure you, not my avatar. It is good to be back! Thank you to the Mexican society SACM for hosting and organising this event. And thanks to all of you, for joining us today.
I have been CISAC President for three years now, but I have not yet managed to become very presidential. It may come with age. And although this is the first time that I am attending a physical General Assembly, I have worked very closely with Gadi and the team and, over the last three years, I have learned a lot about the Confederation. I have come to appreciate the extraordinary devotion and dedication of the people who work in CISAC, and I have learned a lot about the societies’ efforts to serve creators.
Even before I came into this role, I was always aware of the unique importance of the collective management system. I was also impatient to make positive changes. I still am impatient. From the many virtual and physical meetings, I have had, I understand more about just why CISAC and its societies are and can be even more vital to the individual creator.
The creative industries are full of member and trade organisations. But CISAC is one which uniquely and exclusively looks after the interests of the creator, and at a global level.
No other organisation has the back of the creator like CISAC.
That is why, despite the immense challenges we are facing as a community that defends creators, I remain so passionate about the mission we are pursuing together.
But we must never forget that our sole purpose, our sole raison d’etre is to be of service and to support the creator at all times. We must always be approachable and transparent and never become bureaucratic and turn inwards, creating sub-cultures where rules, regulations and careers become more important than our primary task.
The creator is, and must be, at the centre of all that we are working for.
And as the traditional physical revenue streams diminish, it is in the streaming world where our services are most needed and where we must focus.
When I started my career with ABBA, we faced none of the challenges experienced by young creators today. We worked hard but then we had a hit and overnight stardom. That gave us the most precious luxury – time.
Time not to worry about the next paycheck; time to spend days and weeks in the studio writing songs; and time to become educated and learn how to make the right choices for our career.
The vast majority of today’s young creators do not have the luxury of time.
They cannot afford to take the time to build their careers and craft their talent.
In the streaming world, it is a desperate struggle to monetise and market your work. Hundreds of thousands of works are uploaded on streaming platforms daily. Few generate any significant income. The vast majority of creators need to struggle to find other sources of income to support their careers – and to continue chasing their dreams.
I’m not talking about the Billboard top 100 artists or the award-winning film directors. I am talking about the majority of the five million creators across the world represented by the CISAC network. They are not being served fairly by streaming. They are barely making enough to get by.
So many talented artists are unable to pursue their work as creators. So, what do they do? They look for other jobs. Maybe they flip hamburgers and drive taxis and nothing wrong with that, but we may lose the next Paul McCartney that way. We, as a community, must have as our mission to help those talents fulfil their potential. They need us to fight for good legislation that protects their rights. They need us to help get fair pay.
And they need us to work to put an end, once and for all, to the problem of poor data that is costing many creators their right to a career.
There are so many challenges.
But I would like here to concentrate on three areas of priority.
The first issue, and something I feel very strongly about, is data.
In the streaming world, we have to get a new deal for the creators. It was only a decade and half ago that the subscription model came to the rescue of the music industry when illegal downloading threatened the very existence of it. But sadly today, the streaming world is full of problems, injustices and imbalances which need fixing.
First, we must fix the metadata.
Pop music, pop musicians and pop song writers have always been very quick to adapt to new tech, to creatively u se whatever new interesting tech that comes out on the market. Pop music has evolved alongside technology. Always with creative curiosity from both sides and willingness to learn and to listen to each other. To inspire each other. That's the world our members are used to when they are in their creative world. It’s the artistic side of things in the music industry.
Now I wish that was the case in the part of the industry that handles registrations and payments etc. as well. I’ve heard people say many times that in the CMO world lots of tech has been built in silos costing a lot of money, tech that in many cases later has proved more or less useless. Ever since I became president, I’ve wondered why it seems to be so difficult for some of us to collaborate openly, transparently not only between ourselves but also with those third parties out there who can deliver appropriate and less expensive tech. That is clearly in the interest of the creator.
Whatever it takes we have to make sure all works are properly identified, and all the relevant codes are matched to each other, so that creators can get accurately identified and efficiently paid.
Currently poor data is responsible for tens of millions – if not hundreds of millions - of dollars that are not going to the creators who have earned them.
And when songwriters and composers don’t get paid, they lose their careers and livelihoods.
If all that money is not going to creators, where is it going? Can we allow poor data to profit commercial entities and take away from the individual creator?
This must stop. We simply cannot let that continue. and I do see some progress happening to address this issue. For instance:
CISAC’s own ISWC is being increasingly adopted by societies and publishers and now there is further momentum for its use by digital platforms.
In Japan last month, I saw the launch of GDSDX, a new collaboration by CISAC’s Asian members to improve data exchange in that region.
This is an excellent initiative that should be followed in other regions.
The Credits Due campaign, which I have championed, is advancing in its mission to ensure the five key identifiers are present when songs are ingested by streaming services.
Currently as you know the record labels very often do not include the ISWC at the release of a recording. Including the ISWC at the point of release of the song would lead to much more money in the hands of individual creators.
I believe CISAC and the societies have a vital role to play to achieve this.
Poor data is simply eating up creators’ income and it is a blight on the creative industries. It is not, and must never be allowed to be, a business model that’s profiting the big corporations.
My second priority is to get the creator proper recognition in the streaming world. From recognition flows respect. And from respect, follows fair remuneration. In my three years as President, I have spoken a lot about the Song Economy. Songs are where it all starts.
Yet, let us face it: that is not reflected in reality – not while the creator’s share of the revenues is ridiculously small by comparison with record labels and platforms. And not while there remains such a lack of transparency on how the money is divided up and when algorithms can dictate the listening choices of fans.
Some CISAC societies have launched studies on the remuneration of creators and the digital pie. This is an area where both lobbying and education efforts are needed. This is where we can make a difference. We need governments to help improve creators’ share of the digital pie, and we need creators to understand their rights.
Finally, the third issue I wanted to raise is one that is on everyone’s agenda these days. This is the issue of AI. AI is a tool with vast implications that brings opportunities and threats. We know it is coming and there is nothing we can do to stop it. It raises huge existential questions and for us more specifically it raises questions about copyright. How do we deal with it? Let me give you an example to illustrate one aspect of the challenge:
An AI model can now train on the ABBA song catalogue and generate a recording with our voices and ABBA-like arrangements. Let’s say that a talented and musical producer runs the AI. She can hear the potential in the recording but also hear the weaknesses in arrangement, lyric and melody. She tweaks those weaknesses until she has a great new ABBA-like song.
Our producer knows instinctively that using the original voices is unethical, so she blends Frida’s voice with Karen Carpenter and Julie Andrews and others until she has a very attractive untraceable new voice. So, it doesn’t sound quite like ABBA but almost. And if she feels it’s unethical to only train the AI on ABBA she can put Queen and Elton John in the mix as well? The end result is great. What do we think about that?
During my most receptive years growing up I listened to music on the radio and to the records I bought. I’ve lis tened to music ever since, of course, but between, say, when I was 3 and 25 years old the input with the most impact was stored in my inner database. You could say that my neural system trained on that set of data and when I started writing songs, I used that unconsciously. Sometimes I feel that an initial idea kind of lands on me seemingly from nowhere, but from then on it unconsciously feeds off and is combined with melodies and idioms and stuff in my brain from God knows when. And do you know what - that stuff was under copyright.
In 1966 I met Benny Andersson and started writing songs with him. He had the same story. He had gone through the same input process. We still work together, but now we could conceivably add another writer. One that hasn’t had the haphazard, often erratic input process, but could be made to use a more precise database. Its neural system could train on whatever Benny, and I decide at the moment. An AI. If we wanted to write a tango, we’d tell it to train on the 100 best tangos in the world.
As you would have gathered, I’m not entirely sure if our producer has done something that’s ethically wrong. It’s a very fine line. The very nature of pop music is that it imitates, evolves, gets impulses from, and repeats what has gone before.
If AI had been developed as far as it is today back in 1962 and you had asked it to generate truly original music with a truly original sound it wouldn’t have generated the Beatles. It would have been an average mix of what already was out there. But there will come a day when an AI model on its own can generate music and sounds that humans didn’t know they wanted and that they will be emotionally touched by. It’s probably far off, but it will happen. What then?
Well, instinctively we feel we want to know, don’t we. We need to know it’s AI generated, not music or art that’s coming from one human to another. The thought of loving a piece of music or art that hasn’t been touched by a human hand is scary, isn’t it? And what will generally happen to human creations that are digitally consumed? We will have live performances, of course. That is, if the performers aren’t avatars. The future is upon us, ladies, and gentlemen.
AI will radically change the lives of creators.
It has huge implications for the business of creativity, and we are just starting to understand that.
My message to you here is: we can’t afford to sit on our hands and wait to see what happens.
We need to be the leaders in finding the solutions in matters concerning our creators.
There will be intense legal, ethical and policy issues, and I know that some CISAC members are already looking into them.
But the solutions must be global because AI knows no borders.
These issues need to be discussed at the highest level and it is urgent.
We must find solutions to respond to the challenges, while at the same time not hindering the advances that the technology will bring.
So, to conclude – this is the most exciting time to be in the creative sector.
A time of unprecedented technological advancement, opportunity, and innovation. There are huge challenges facing creators and the creative industries. And these are challenges that the CISAC global network is uniquely placed to address. Bad data is penalising creators.
The lack of fairness in the streaming world is a real threat to the future generation of creators. And AI will no doubt shape our business in the future.
All of these are global issues needing help from organisations with global reach, expertise, and leadership. I believe this CISAC community has immense potential to guide and bring positive changes. We are a diverse community which makes agreement on action difficult. But diversity is also the source of our authority and influence. We must stay committed to being united and working together. We need to be the leaders in finding solutions.
Thank you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kRq8kjE1xM
Mexico City, 30 May 2023 — The General Assembly of CISAC (International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers) will take place for the first time in Mexico on 1st June, bringing together representatives of over 100 authors societies from five continents.
The event is hosted by SACM (Society of Authors and Composers of Mexico) which will welcome creators from all artistic disciplines. The agenda will focus on the challenges and opportunities now facing creators and their societies, at a time of unprecedented technological change.
Safeguarding creators’ rights, increasing royalty collections, and improving the efficiency of the CISAC global network will be key themes. Copyright issues will be addressed in the context of Artificial Intelligence, the Metaverse, NFTs and licenses for the use of works in the digital environment.
The CISAC Assembly will be followed on 2nd June by a meeting of CIAM, the International Council of Music Creators.
CISAC is the world's largest network in the creative sector, incorporating 227-member collective management organisations (CMOs) in 118 countries. Together, this global network represents more than 5 million creators in music, visual arts, literature, drama, and the audiovisual sector.
Gadi Oron, CISAC Director General, says: “I am delighted that we are once again able to meet in person for the General Assembly, and I’m grateful to the team at SACM for hosting the most important annual gathering in the CISAC calendar. We are meeting at a time of extraordinary changes in our sector, and the key focus of the Assembly has to be on how CISAC can respond, adapt and strengthen our network to best serve our members in the future”.
The annual meeting will be attended by CISAC’s President, ABBA co-founder and legendary songwriter Björn Ulvaeus. Two of its Vice-Presidents will also attend: the acclaimed Mexican classical composer Arturo Márquez and Yvonne Chaka Chaka, one of South Africa’s leading singer-songwriters and a human rights champion. The renowned Japanese artist Kazuhiko Fukuoji, who has been invited to stand for election as a Vice-President, will also join.
Björn Ulvaeus comments: “CISAC’s most important mission is to use its global network to serve creators. We do that by defending creators’ rights and promoting efficiency and transparency among our member societies. We encourage members to collaborate, share services and use the best available technologies to process data, so that creators can be paid efficiently and fairly for their works”.
Among CISAC’s recent international initiatives are: “Creators for Ukraine”, providing financial and moral support for authors affected by the war; the global campaign to promote adoption of the music identifier ISWC across the music ecosystem; and “Your Music Your Future International”, to educate creators on buyout contracts.
CISAC is working at a global level for stronger laws that protect creators and rightsholders. Its “Private Copying Global Study” provides expert guidance on private copying regimes that have been implemented in more than 70 countries. CISAC is also actively campaigning for fair remuneration rights for audiovisual creators, and for universal adoption of the Resale Right for visual artists.
Roberto Cantoral Zucchi, General Director of SACM and member of the CISAC Board of Directors since 2016 comments: “We are delighted to welcome our sister societies in Mexico. We are meeting in the certainty that we must be prepared in order to respond to the massive changes that we are facing in our landscape. We must act with agility, resourcefulness, efficiency, and determination in order to preserve the rights of creators who are a central part of the sustainable development of modern societies”.
CISAC Board Chair Marcelo Castello Branco says: "The CISAC global network has shown an impressive recovery in the last year. The soundness of societies through successive crises highlights the immense value to CMOs of belonging to a global community. It enables fairer, more effective lobbying for legislation, and provides access to technology services that are needed to improve our systems in the streaming world”.
https://www.cisac.org/Newsroom/news-releases/cisac-2023-general-assembly-convenes-mexico
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The 2023 General Assembly saw keynote speeches addressing CISAC’s mission and work programme; the announcement of new CISAC Vice-Presidents; and, for the first time in this format, a series of panels moderated by CISAC team members, engaging a wide range of perspectives from societies representing all repertoires.
Before the business of the General Assembly, another prestigious meeting took place at Mexico’s National Palace, where a delegation of creators and CISAC member society heads met with the President, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, and the First Lady. In a two-hour meeting, the delegation, including CISAC’s President and Vice-Presidents and SACM creators and executives, was heartened to hear the President’s commitment to supporting culture and the creative industries and to protecting authors’ rights.
GA_Meeting with Mexican President
©SACM
Moving on to the General Assembly on 1st June, the opening address came from CISAC President and ABBA co-founder Björn Ulvaeus. He said, “Over the last three years, I have learned a lot about the Confederation. I have come to appreciate the extraordinary devotion and dedication of the people who work in CISAC, and I have learned a lot about the societies’ efforts to serve creators…No other organisation has the back of the creator like CISAC.”
Ulvaeus drew attention to the challenges experienced by young creators today, many of whom are not being served fairly by streaming and need to look for other jobs instead of being able to pursue their work as creators. He underlined three priority areas: (1) fixing metadata, (2) getting the creator proper recognition in the streaming world, and (3) artificial intelligence.
https://www.cisac.org/Newsroom/articles/colour-returns-world-collective-management-first-person-cisac-general-assembly-4
https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=836707741155822&set=pcb.836708271155769&locale=th_TH
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Björn Ulvaeus, integrante de ABBA, encabeza discusión entre compositores sobre la IA
Belén Eligio | El Sol de México —
/ viernes 2 de junio de 2023
Björn Ulvaeus, integrante de ABBA, encabeza discusión entre compositores sobre la IA
Björn Ulvaeus, integrante de ABBA y presidente de la Confederación Internacional de Sociedades de Autores y Compositores, habló del uso de la tecnología en la creación
Björn Ulvaeus fundador del grupo ABBA / Laura Lovera | El Sol de México
Belén Eligio | El Sol de México
Este martes se inauguró la Asamblea General de la Confederación Internacional de Sociedades de Autores y Compositores (CISAC), a la que acudieron representantes de 90 sociedades autorales de todo el mundo, incluyendo a Martín Urieta y Roberto Cantoral Zucchi, presidente y director general de la Sociedad de Autores y Compositores de México.
El presidente del organismo, Björn Ulvaeus, quien además fue fundador del grupo ABBA, resaltó que su gestión tiene tres grandes desafíos relacionados con la tecnología, pero actualmente el más grande tiene que ver con la llegada de la inteligencia artificial (IA).
Puede interesarte: Matías Gruener debuta como compositor
“Nos presenta una serie de oportunidades y amenazas. Sabemos que viene y no la podemos detener, levanta muchas preguntas”, dijo en su discurso inaugural. “La idea de tener una pieza musical que no ha sido tocada por las manos humanas es aterradora, aunque siempre tendremos las presentaciones en vivo. Siempre y cuando no sean animatronics”.
El músico resaltó que durante la reunión que sostuvo con Andrés Manuel López Obrador el pasado miércoles, abordó este tema en busca de soluciones que les permitan a las sociedades a nivel mundial hacer frente a la inminente incursión de la IA en la industria.
“Necesitamos el apoyo de los gobiernos, y que los creadores entiendan sus derechos. Requerimos acceso a esos elementos”, señaló. “El futuro está aquí, damas y caballeros, la IA está cambiando las reglas de los creadores. Mi mensaje es que no nos podemos quedar con los brazos cruzados y esperar a ver qué pasa, debemos encontrar soluciones”.
Para dar un panorama más amplio sobre esta problemática, explicó que aún con la intervención de un productor, las IA tienen la capacidad de detectar los puntos débiles de una composición, así como mezclar las voces originales con otras creadas artificialmente, lo que dificulta la identificación de las obras originales.
El originario de Gotemburgo, Suecia, destacó que otro punto a defender es el tema de las regalías para los compositores, pues si bien hoy las plataformas digitales permiten a cualquier persona distribuir su música, “el mayor desafío actualmente es que los creadores sean identificados fácilmente, pues las ganancias no están llegando directamente a ellos”.
Según recuerda, cuando inició su carrera con ABBA (en 1972) no tenían los retos de los artistas de esta generación, quienes tienen su trabajo en distintas aplicaciones, pero sin ganancias significativas.
“En el mundo streaming necesitamos un nuevo trato para los creadores. Hace tan sólo una década y media que el modelo de suscripción llegó al rescate de la industria musical. Pero tristemente hoy ese mundo está lleno de problemas”, declaró.
MÉXICO A LA DEFENSA DE SUS AUTORES
En su encuentro con medios, Roberto Cantoral compartió que parte de la conversación con el presidente Andrés Manuel López Obrador abordó el tema de la iniciativa de ley que pretende establecer una contribución a los fabricantes o importadores de aparatos para permitir la copia o reproducción sonora, visual o audiovisual de sus obras conocidas.
“Estamos buscando también el reconocimiento y la remuneración compensatoria por copia privada de todos los fabricantes de dispositivos, que ya tienen más de 74 países. ¿Por qué México teniendo una cultura tan relevante a nivel mundial no estamos a la altura de esto? Tenemos que luchar por esto”, finalizó.
https://www.elsoldemexico.com.mx/gossip/bjorn-ulvaeus-integrante-de-abba-encabeza-discusion-entre-compositores-sobre-la-ia-10158503.html
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SACM_Oficial
Author societies around the world strengthened ties in favor of Copyright. "We have to get ahead, lead. We cannot allow others to decide on the future of artistic creation". Björn Ulvaeus, President of . Thanks for being in Mexico!
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Embajada de Suecia en Mexico
Björn Ulvaeus de ABBA: "Es mi primera vez [en CDMX] y estoy fascinado con el recibimiento. Próximamente podríamos hacer algo... sé que ya está la obra 'Mamma Mía', pero tenemos el show 'Mamma Mia, The Party'... más pronto de lo que se imaginan anunciaremos algo!"
Ayer por primera vez, México fue sede de la Asamblea General del CISAC (Confederación Internacional de Sociedad de Autores y Compositores). Björn Ulvaeus, cofundador de ABBA y presidente de la confederación lideró la asamblea y hizo énfasis en reconocer la capacidad de adaptación de los creadores a las nuevas tecnologías y el implemento de nuevas fórmulas para absorberlas en su esquema de trabajo.
"Es muy importante aceptar que hay avances, y sobre todo, crecimiento. La tecnología es parte de la evolución y debemos asumirla e integrarla para bien, jamás con el propósito de afectar a alguien", especificó el músico."
También aprovechó la oportunidad para expresar lo feliz que estaba por la buena recepción en México, insinuando que pronto podríamos ver más de ABBA por aquí…
Las citas tomadas del artículo de hoy en Reforma.
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photo from Bjorn in Mexico
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update junio 18 06 2023
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