Europe at the Crossroads: Will the Law Strengthen Authors’ Rights or Surrender the “Crown Jewels” of Human Creativity? @Helienne Lindvall’s ECSA Keynote

[An important keynote from Helienne Lindvall, President of the European Composer and Songwriter Alliance, on why creators’ consent, transparency, and fair remuneration must remain central in the AI era. The keynote was presented as part of the European Composer & Songwriter Alliance (ECSA) conference on “Authors’ Rights and Music Streaming in the Age of AI”, which focused on generative AI and the future of music creators’ rights in Europe

Good afternoon to every one of you, whether you’re here in this room or joining us online. It is a pleasure to welcome you all here today and I want to thank MEDAA, la Maison européenne des Autrices et des Auteurs, for hosting today’s ECSA conference on “Authors’ Rights and Music Streaming in the Age of AI”. ]

I am Helienne Lindvall, songwriter and the President of ECSA, the European Composer and Songwriter Alliance. ECSA represents 57 professional music authors’ associations and more than 30,000 composers across 29 European countries. I am honoured to be here today with fellow composers, songwriters, policymakers, and representatives from Europe’s cultural and creative sectors.

I am particularly grateful to welcome Henna Virkkunen, the Executive Vice-President for Technological Sovereignty, Security, and Democracy at the European Commission. Ms. Virkkunen – thank you again for joining us. We are all looking forward to hearing your opening remarks in just a moment.

I also want to thank three Members of the European Parliament for their participation: Emma Rafowicz, co-rapporteur on the Agora EU programme, Axel Voss, rapporteur on the recent report on copyright and generative AI, and Hélder Sousa Silva, who will draft the forthcoming report on the Cultural and creative sectors in the age of AI.

We would also like to express our deepest gratitude to all the speakers who will contribute their time and expertise today. And remember that this conference would not be possible without the support of the Creative Europe programme.

So, Authors’ Rights and Music Streaming in the Age of AI? Let me first take a step back to 2016. Ten years ago, the European Commission President, Jean-Claude Juncker, called artists and creators “Europe’s crown jewels”. He said their works should be protected and they should be paid fairly.

Three years later, the EU adopted the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market. We applauded it, for enshrining appropriate and proportionate remuneration, for increasing transparency in contracts, and for strengthening author’s rights on content-sharing platforms. Seven years on, where do we stand?

Well, the truth is that the principle of appropriate and proportionate remuneration is still too often circumvented in practice, in particular through buyout practices, but also when it comes to other online exploitation, such as streaming.

And then came generative AI. Adopted at a time when generative AI was barely existing, the Directive does not mention AI anywhere.

But it does include text and data mining exceptions, designed to help universities and researchers, discover new trends and gaining new knowledge. Supposedly with minimal harm to authors and other rightholders.

The reality? When not simply ignoring EU rules, global AI companies have exploited those exceptions far beyond their intended purpose. They’ve scraped and used all our works without consent, without transparency, and without remuneration. The harm to music authors isn’t minimal—it’s maximal. AI-generated content now imitates and substitutes us.

Some say “You could have opted out.” But here’s the truth: AI companies scraped everything – looting the entire history of musical works – before we had a fair chance to opt out and even know how to opt out.

To quote Baroness Beeban Kidron, the director of Bridget Jones The Edge of Reason: “Should shopkeepers have to opt out of shoplifters? Should victims of violence have to opt out of attacks? Should those who use the internet for banking have to opt out of fraud? I struggle to think of another situation where someone protected by law must proactively wrap it around themselves on an individual basis.”

And for a songwriter like me—working with co-writers, different CMOs, publishers, and labels—opting out is practically impossible. And even if it was possible, we would be naive to believe it would be respected. How would we even know if it were, when there is no transparency?

The AI Act’s implementation hasn’t helped. Its transparency rules are weak. Trade secrets protect massive theft. Imagine a fast-food manufacturer who had stolen all the ingredients that went into their products, refusing to reveal what the ingredients are or where they came from, calling it a “trade secret”. Then demanding it should be up to the farmers to prove it was their produce that was stolen. That’s what we’re dealing with.

Coca Cola may have a secret recipe, but it still has to display what went into each bottle, and pay its suppliers. It shouldn’t be up to creators to prove AI companies used our works. They should be required to get our consent and to be transparent. Or we should presume — correctly — that they already scraped the entire web.

Yes, a few licensing deals have been signed in the past year — between a couple of major labels and AI companies, usually after litigation, and mostly in the US. But we know next to nothing about the details of those deals – or whether composers and songwriters will benefit in any way, despite it being our works that have been stolen and exploited.

Licensing shouldn’t only be available to those with the muscle to sue. In Europe, where we claim to cherish our artists and cultural diversity, survival of the fittest cannot be the answer. AI companies have ingested ALL the music available online. It makes no sense that only the most powerful get a license and get paid, when they only supplied a fraction of the ingredients. And let me be clear: we are not against AI. It can be a helpful tool in our workflow as creators. We are simply against unlicensed AI.

Generative AI companies must act ethically. They must work with us—not profit from our work without consent and at our expense. That’s the only way to rebuild trust between creators and AI companies. Currently, the AI landscape is like the Wild West, and AI startups that want to act ethically cannot compete when there is a shop next door selling stolen goods.

Let’s be honest, the current framework is misinterpreted and applied far beyond its original purpose. It has created a high level of uncertainty that only benefits global generative AI companies to the detriment of creators. We cannot wait for courts to decide policy. We cannot rely on opaque deals between big corporations where the money rarely trickles down to creators.

This isn’t the time for sticking plasters [or Band Aids] on a wooden leg. It’s time for policymakers to be bold. The good news: not only the Pope but also many EU Member States and the European Parliament are showing the way. The recent Voss report on Copyright and Generative AI recognizes that AI systems rely massively on protected works—exploited without authorization or compensation. It recommends:

• Full transparency for AI training, including a rebuttable presumption of use for any AI service operating in the EU; and

• A new legislative initiative to clarify licensing rules and establish a functioning market.

We fully support this. We need a framework that:

1. Enables fair remuneration for creators

2. Ensures EU copyright law applies to all services operating in the EU.

3. Addresses the substitution and dilution of human creation by AI output

4. Ensures collective management can deliver appropriate and proportionate remuneration to all creators—big and small

The Parliament has also insisted that digital platforms must act against AI fraud and manipulation. And it is not the first time – the European Parliament’s report on music streaming, adopted in 2024, already did so, with many other recommendations to improve the identification of creators on music streaming platforms and ensure more transparency in algorithms and recommendation systems, as well as when it comes to AI generated music.

For composers and songwriters, streaming fraud through AI is a critical issue. In April, Deezer reported that 75,000 fully AI-generated tracks are uploaded daily to the platform – that’s 44% of all uploads. In March, a man in the US pleaded guilty to defrauding streaming platforms with AI-generated tracks, generating millions in royalties. Fraudsters impersonate real artists, upload fake songs to their profiles, and steal their royalties. This isn’t just an economic issue. It’s ethical – it’s a massive violation of moral rights and personal data.

And it threatens citizens’ trust in the authenticity of digital content. That’s one of the many reasons why we welcome MEPs Rafowicz and Kuhnke’s draft report on AgoraEU, which rightly prioritizes human creativity over AI-generated works.

We also warmly welcome this proposal for a dedicated music strand that can address the concrete challenges and structural imbalances impacting the sector, such as increasing market concentration, artistic freedom, fair remuneration and the growing dominance of digital service providers.

Today, 26 organisations from across the European music sector published a statement to support this draft report and encourage all MEPs to give the music sector the support it deserves.

Now, let me conclude: Our plea today is simple: The promise made to Europe’s crown jewels in 2016 remains unfulfilled: The exceptions designed to help researchers and generate information now fuel billion-dollar companies that exploit us. The transparency we were promised is hidden behind trade secrets. The licensing market that should exist is reserved for those who can afford the most expensive lawyers in the US. This must change.

We call on European policymakers to act with courage. With the European Parliament, we call for an additional legal framework, one that can finally uphold the key principles of transparency, consent and remuneration and encourage a well-functioning licensing market. This is not about adding more regulation This is to rebalance a framework that is fundamentally flawed, far from its intended purpose and Europe’s most fundamental values.

Europe must decide: will it stand with its creators, or stand by while our works are taken without consent? Let us become once again Europe’s crown jewels.

Please. Let’s make this true. Thank you.

by thetrichordist

StubHub’s FIFA Ticket Debacle Is Different This Time

For years, critics of the secondary ticketing industry (including us) have warned about the dangers of speculative ticket sales, hidden fees, and platforms that profit whether fans ultimately get through the gate or not. Those warnings were often dismissed as the complaints of disgruntled consumers.

The FIFA World Cup ticket controversy suggests those critics may have been right all along. As reported in Business Insider:

Countless World Cup fans are discovering that their tickets have gone poof, and they’re left scrambling to decide whether to buy new, pricier ones or simply give up on their World Cup dreams. They’re asking themselves how this could happen, since many people don’t realize it’s even a possibility.

The answer lies in the peculiar structure of secondary ticket marketplaces. Sites such as StubHub don’t actually sell tickets, much like eBay or Facebook Marketplace, they just connect buyers and sellers. This setup relies on sellers to come through with the tickets they say they have, essentially rendering it an honor system. Companies often don’t require sellers to upload their tickets immediately or provide proof of purchase. Many platforms give sellers until the day of the event to hand over the tickets.

It’s impossible to know the explanation for each individual situation, but one potential culprit is speculative ticketing, which I coined “ghost ticketing” last year. In these scenarios, resellers list tickets on StubHub or SeatGeek that they don’t yet have, hoping they’ll eventually secure them (for a lower price than they offered) and send them along.

FIFA warns fans about such practices:

You can transfer your tickets using the Ticket Transfer feature on the FIFA Resale/Exchange Marketplace. The marketplace is accessible via FIFA.com/tickets.

Please note: Transferring tickets to third-party platforms or accounts is discouraged as it may result in issues, including the inability to cancel or accept transfers. To ensure a secure and valid transfer process, please use the Ticket Transfer feature between FIFA accounts.

Fans reportedly purchased World Cup tickets through StubHub, booked flights, hotels, and vacations around those purchases, only to discover that tickets never arrived, could not be transferred, or could not be honored. In many cases, the offered remedy was a refund.

Business Insider reports that:

A SeatGeek spokesperson said in an email that [a fan’s] letdown “fell short” of the experience the company aims to provide and said they’d apologized to him and were working on a resolution. “We continue to invest significant resources in monitoring World Cup orders and supporting fans attending matches,” they said.

But a refund is not a remedy when the one-time event is over. An “apology” maybe very Internet (“we said we were sorry [for fill in the blank obvious scummy and shady behavior]”) but it ain’t going to cut it.

A World Cup match is not a toaster. Consumers are not merely purchasing a product; they are purchasing an experience tied to a specific place and time. Once the match is over, no amount of reimbursement can recreate the opportunity, no apologies will make the fan whole.

The deeper problem is that these incidents expose the fundamental flaw in speculative ticketing. In many cases, tickets appear—to be more fair than they deserve— to have been offered for sale before sellers possessed transferable inventory or before they could demonstrate a present ability to deliver what they were selling. Consumers were effectively asked to assume the risk that the ticket would eventually materialize. This kind of thing is often called “fraud” in the trade.

Imagine a securities market where brokers could freely sell commodities they did not possess and buyers discovered on settlement day that the shares or options never existed. Regulators would never tolerate such a system. Yet in secondary ticketing markets, similar concerns have persisted for years and nobody has gone to jail.

Longtime critics of the speculative ticketing industry may experience a sense of déjà vu.

As recently as 2024, plaintiffs in Kaiser v. StubHub advanced allegations that sound remarkably familiar: tickets to Hotspurs game allegedly offered for sale that sellers did not possess, consumers induced to purchase based on representations about availability, and a platform collecting fees while bearing relatively little delivery risk. The complaint included civil RICO allegations before being referred to arbitration, meaning many of the underlying claims were ruled on in private (secret) arbitration and never tested through a public merits determination.

Kaiser v stubhubDownload

The significance of Kaiser is not whether every allegation was ultimately proven. The significance is that the core complaints sound strikingly similar to those now emerging from the FIFA World Cup controversy. If the allegations prove accurate, critics will understandably ask why the same concerns appear to be resurfacing only two years later on a much larger stage.

Another uncomfortable question concerns StubHub’s longstanding reliance on mandatory arbitration clauses and class-action waivers contained in its consumer terms of service. Historically, those provisions have helped channel disputes into private proceedings, limiting public discovery and reducing the risk of large-scale class litigation. Indeed, in Kaiser, the court referred even the plaintiffs’ civil RICO claims to arbitration—a result that many consumer advocates viewed as troubling public policy because allegations involving potentially systemic marketplace practices were removed from public judicial scrutiny.

It must be said that StubHub is hardly alone in trying to stretch consumer arbitration provisions beyond what most consumers would reasonably expect. Disney drew national criticism when it initially sought to invoke a Disney+ arbitration clause in a wrongful-death case arising from an allergic-reaction death at Disney Springs. The Happiest Place on Earth later backed down, but the episode illustrates the same broader problem: companies increasingly treat arbitration clauses as all-purpose liability shields, even when the dispute bears little resemblance to the ordinary consumer transaction that supposedly created consent.

The FIFA controversy may test the limits of that strategy. When alleged consumer harm spans multiple countries, major sporting events, and potentially thousands of affected purchasers, the practical, political, and regulatory pressures become much harder to contain through private arbitration. More importantly, arbitration clauses do not bind government regulators. A consumer may be forced into arbitration, but the FTC is not. Nor are state attorneys general, foreign regulators, or other enforcement authorities. In that sense, arbitration may reduce private litigation exposure, but it provides little protection against the type of regulatory scrutiny that often follows high-profile consumer failures.

The larger the FIFA controversy becomes, the less likely it is that StubHub can resolve it behind closed doors. Plus, it makes America look bad and we can think of at least one person who might get really pissed about that.

The FIFA controversy is also notable because the underlying conduct is not universally accepted as a legitimate market practice. In the United Kingdom, the unauthorized resale of football tickets is heavily restricted and, in many circumstances, prohibited outside approved channels established by clubs and governing bodies. That issue surfaced in Kaiser, where plaintiffs alleged sales occurring outside authorized distribution systems and when the plaintiff showed up at Hotspurs World, it became apparent that the plaintiff was the only one not in on the joke. In other words, at least some jurisdictions have already concluded that unrestricted secondary-market sales of football tickets create risks significant enough to warrant legal restrictions.

The timing could hardly be worse for StubHub.

The company recently resolved an FTC enforcement action involving allegedly deceptive pricing practices and so-called “junk fees.” The FTC accused StubHub of using drip-pricing tactics that advertised one price while revealing mandatory fees later in the purchasing process. The resulting settlement required changes to pricing disclosures and a $10 million payment.

But hidden fees were only part of the story.

The FTC’s broader rulemaking record also discussed speculative ticketing as a potentially deceptive practice under the same rule. In fact, commenters specifically raised concerns that platforms were facilitating the sale of tickets that sellers did not actually possess or could not yet transfer. The Commission cited those concerns in its rulemaking discussion, recognizing that speculative ticketing may present consumer-protection issues distinct from hidden fees alone. Numerous states have outlawed speculative ticketing outright, concluding that selling tickets you do not possess is not innovation—it’s such serious consumer harm they outlaw the practice.

That point deserves emphasis. Critics of speculative ticketing were not simply complaining on social media or filing isolated lawsuits. They participated in the federal rulemaking process itself. The concerns raised in litigation such as Kaiser and in comments submitted to the FTC were sufficiently significant that the Commission expressly addressed them when adopting its junk-fee framework. The FIFA controversy therefore does not emerge from nowhere. It arrives against a backdrop of years of consumer complaints, litigation, regulatory comments, and public warnings that the industry has largely resisted.

If a platform represents inventory as available when the seller lacks the present ability to transfer or deliver it, the issue extends beyond pricing disclosures and into the integrity of the marketplace itself. That distinction is significant because it supports expansion of available legal prosecutions.

A civil RICO plaintiff would likely argue that repeated electronic communications marketing unavailable or non-transferable tickets constitute a pattern of wire fraud. And that puts you squarely in racketeering land. Whether such a claim could succeed would depend heavily on evidence of knowledge, intent, and the scale of the conduct. But the FIFA controversy inevitably invites the question raised in Kaiser: at what point does a recurring business practice stop looking like isolated misconduct and start looking systemic?

No one should assume that a criminal RICO case is around the corner. Federal prosecutors would need far stronger evidence and proof of knowing participation in criminal conduct. Yet once allegations involve recurring speculative inventory, consumer deception, electronic communications, and a potentially nationwide pattern of conduct, the discussion inevitably broadens from customer service to compliance and governance. The FTC has been partway down this path before with StubHub—while FTC can’t bring a criminal prosecution, it’s a short stop to a Department of Justice referral, Especially if you know who gets involved.

And that is what makes this episode different.

For years, StubHub could treat these controversies as disputes with unhappy customers. Today, StubHub is a public company. It has benefited from access to public capital markets and the confidence of public investors. With that status comes heightened expectations regarding compliance systems, risk management, internal controls, and regulatory oversight.

Angry fans are one thing. Invited guests in our country are another thing entirely, as are regulators, institutional investors, securities lawyers, and the SEC.

The problem for StubHub is not merely that critics predicted these issues. The problem is that critics raised them in court, raised them before federal regulators, and saw those concerns acknowledged in the FTC’s own rulemaking record—yet the complaints continue to surface.

The problem for StubHub is not that critics are saying something new. The problem is that critics appear to be saying the same thing they were saying in Kaiser—only now the whole world is watching.

If the FIFA complaints ultimately prove as widespread as it appears, investors may begin asking uncomfortable questions that go well beyond customer service. Is speculative ticketing a disclosed business risk? Is it primarily a compliance problem? Or is it so deeply embedded in the economics of the marketplace that meaningful reform would materially affect revenue and growth? And, as they say, “have a materially adverse affect on StubHub’s business.”

Those are not questions typically asked by disappointed fans on social media. They are the kinds of questions asked by regulators, analysts, institutional investors, auditors, and securities lawyers.

The secondary ticketing industry has spent years arguing that it provides efficiency and liquidity. Governor Polis defended the practices as an “innovative online ticket waiting service” (yes, he really said that). The FIFA fiasco suggests something different: a system that privatizes gains, socializes risk, and too often leaves consumers holding the bag.

SB23-060 Veto Letter-1Download

For a public company operating under the gaze of both the FTC and the SEC, that should no longer be good enough.

Because the real risk for StubHub may not be the next user lawsuit, the next consumer arbitration demand, or even the next FTC inquiry. The real risk is that investors begin to conclude that what defenders have long described as isolated incidents are, in fact, permanent features of the unsavory business model itself.

by Trichordist

Don’t Freeze Mechanicals Again

The compulsory mechanical license was created by Congress in the Copyright Act of 1909 as a response to the rise of player pianos and piano rolls, which threatened to place control of a new music reproduction technology in the hands of a few dominant companies. To prevent monopoly control, Congress established a compulsory license allowing anyone to reproduce a musical composition upon payment of a statutory royalty. That royalty was set at 2 cents per song. Remarkably, the 2-cent rate remained unchanged for nearly seven decades, surviving the birth of commercial radio, records, tapes, and the modern recording industry until the Copyright Act of 1976. Given that the dominant music users are either monopolies themselves or effectively monopolies (Google, Amazon, Spotify), the entire purpose of the compulsory license seems laughable today, but oh, well—they’re from Washington and they’re here to help.

The Copyright Act of 1976 did more than end the 2-cent mechanical royalty freeze. It established a framework for periodic review of statutory rates so that songwriters would not again be trapped for generations at a rate set by Congress decades earlier. Over time, Congress refined that system, eventually replacing ad hoc adjustment proceedings with the modern Copyright Royalty Board (CRB). Today, the CRB conducts recurring rate-setting proceedings that evaluate economic conditions and marketplace developments. While the process is often contentious, the result has generally been upward movement in mechanical royalties, reflecting inflation, changing markets, and the enduring value of musical works.

USCO Mechanical Rates -w- SupplementDownload

The next mechanical royalty rate-setting hearings before the Copyright Royalty Board are upon us (called “Phonorecords V” follow it here). Like so many other aspects of the CRB, it seems that awareness of the hearing varies inversely to its economic importance for songwriters—meaning that the more it affects your pocketbook, the fewer people appear to know about it. Let’s see if we can change that dynamic.

The CRB will set rates for streaming mechanicals, a whole saga unto itself, but the Board also sets rates for the sale of physical records like vinyl and permanent downloads. It was these rates that created a dust up the last time around in Phonorecords IV, because the first tentative settlement was rejected by the Judges. Had the Judges not rejected the first settlement, the insiders would have frozen the physical/download rates for another five years in addition to the freeze that was already in place since 2006 for a total of 21 years.

The PR V resolution should be simple: whatever inflation-adjusted rate that is in effect at the end of the Phonorecords IV rate period should become the starting point for the next rate period in Phonorecords V. Why? Because the CRJs proposed the 12¢ PR IV base reference rate (plus COLA) as a compromise recognizing that the statutory rate had not been adjusted for inflation from 2006 through 2023. Having adopted an actual inflation-adjusted rate through a revised settlement in PR IV, choosing to revert to 12¢ in 2026 for PR V would effectively disregard the very rationale that justified the compromise in the first place. There’s nothing economically magical about a 12¢ rate in 2022 that should inform a new rate in 2028.

Yet there is a risk that some stakeholders may argue that the 12¢ reference rate established in Phonorecords IV should remain the permanent benchmark and that future proceedings should effectively restart from that 12¢ figure even though they know that the real rate is actually the inflation adjusted rate. This is the kind of thing lawyers come up with and is completely divorced from reality.

We explain the frozen mechanicals crisis from 2022

If the CPI-adjusted rate reaches approximately 13.6¢ by 2027, as current inflation projections suggest, such a 12¢ approach would amount to an immediate reduction in songwriter and publisher compensation. Rough justice, that 12¢ rate would actually be worth around 11¢ today, so asking for a 12¢ reference rate is like saying would you take 11 which would be roughly a 20% reduction. That would make little sense economically, legally, or as a matter of regulatory policy.

The key point is that the annual CPI adjustments adopted in Phonorecords IV are not temporary bonuses. They are part of the rate structure. The Judges did not establish a 12¢ rate and then provide a series of discretionary supplements. Rather, they established a rate that increases annually according to a defined formula. The resulting rate is the actual statutory royalty rate in effect at the time. If the rate reaches 13.6¢ in 2027, then 13.6¢ is the reference rate for PR V.

Resetting the benchmark to 12¢ would create a downward ratchet unlike anything that participants in a functioning market would expect not to mention in the post-1978 history of the Copyright Act. Songwriters and publishers would receive annual increases throughout the rate period only to see those increases erased at the start of the next one. Such a result would be arbitrary and would undermine confidence in the stability of the statutory license.

For years, the mechanical royalty remained frozen at 9.1¢ while inflation steadily eroded its economic value. Phonorecords IV represented an acknowledgment that perpetual freezes are difficult to justify in a modern economy. It would be strange indeed if the solution to one rate freeze were simply to create another.

There is also a practical problem. If the statutory rate can be reset downward whenever a new proceeding begins, then the annual CPI adjustment becomes less meaningful. Parties will spend years litigating a rate structure only to find that the resulting increases can be wiped away at the start of the next cycle. That is not how durable rate regulation is supposed to work.

The cleaner approach is the obvious one. The final rate in effect during one period should become the reference rate for the next period unless the evidentiary record demonstrates that a different rate is warranted. This is how the rate was set from 1978 to 2006 and how most regulated systems operate. The existing rate serves as the baseline, and adjustments are made from there.

The issue is ultimately one of continuity. The statutory mechanical royalty should evolve through evidence-based proceedings, not through accounting tricks that erase previously awarded increases. If the rate reaches 13.6¢ in 2027, then 13.6¢ should become the starting point for the next rate period.

The rate clock should move forward, not backward. A songwriter named Hoyt Axton worked his tail off getting the rate on a track to increase with the passing of the 1976 Copyright Act. And I for one will never forget him.

[A version of this post first appeared on MusicTechPolicy]

by thetrichordist

Yes, it really is a data center next to the Nashville Zoo

The proposal to build a massive data center adjacent to the Nashville Zoo raises a simple question: Have we completely lost our sense of priorities?

Nashville’s zoo exists to provide education, conservation, recreation, and a rare connection between people and animals. Families bring children to experience living animals, open space, and a respite from the relentless industrialization that increasingly consumes American communities. Yet now residents are being told that one of the city’s most treasured public assets should coexist with an industrial-scale computing facility whose primary purpose is to feed the endless demand for artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and speculative digital services. This is insane and it is exactly backward.

The burden of proof should not fall on citizens to explain why they do not want a hyperscale data center next to a zoo. The burden should fall on developers to explain why a project requiring enormous quantities of electricity, water, backup generation, transmission infrastructure, truck traffic, and round-the-clock industrial operations and both light and noise pollution belongs there in the first place.

The economic promises attached to these projects are increasingly difficult to take seriously as has been demonstrated by a recent study of data center job impact in Texas. Across the country, data center developers routinely advertise billions of dollars in investment while generating surprisingly few permanent jobs. Independent research has repeatedly found that many large data centers produce limited long-term employment relative to their physical footprint, utility demands, and public subsidies. Communities are often left with the costs while investors and distant technology companies capture the benefits.

Meanwhile, the impacts are immediate and local.

Residents face years of construction activity, noise, traffic, and visual blight. Wildlife habitats are disrupted. Open space disappears. Transmission lines, substations, backup generators, and supporting infrastructure permanently alter the character of surrounding neighborhoods. Once built, these facilities are effectively impossible to remove. They become permanent industrial fixtures.

The Nashville Zoo should not become collateral damage in the AI arms race.

Even more troubling is the uncertainty surrounding the long-term economics of artificial intelligence itself. Technology companies are spending hundreds of billions of dollars based on forecasts that extend years into the future. Yet many of the underlying assumptions remain unproven. No one can say with confidence what demand for AI services will look like five, ten, or twenty years from now. If those forecasts prove wrong, communities could be left staring at the digital equivalent of abandoned factories—massive, energy-hungry facilities built for demand that never materialized.

The risk is not theoretical. Economists have a name for this phenomenon: stranded assets.

A zoo is a long-term civic investment. It creates educational, environmental, and cultural value that can endure for generations. A speculative AI data center is a bet on future demand forecasts generated in corporate boardrooms and venture-capital presentations.

When those two visions collide, the choice should not be difficult.

Nashville should protect its zoo, its surrounding communities, and its quality of life. There are countless locations better suited for industrial-scale computing infrastructure. A zoo is not one of them.

Some places should remain places for people, families, wildlife, and conservation. Not every acre of land needs to be sacrificed to the next technological gold rush.

The Nashville Zoo deserves better than becoming the neighbor of a machine. And believe me, if they’ll do it in Nashville they’ll do it anywhere. The Zoo has a Change.org petition you can sign if you agree.

by Trichordist Editor

As Suno Celebrated a $5.4 Billion Valuation, Artists Took Their Message Directly to Wall Street

SANTA MONICA, CALIFORNIA – JUNE 03: A mobile billboard sponsored by Human Artistry protesting Suno’s use of AI is pictured on display during Suno’s annual meeting on June 03, 2026 in Santa Monica, California. (Photo by Anna Webber/Getty Images for Human Artistry Campaign)

On June 3, 2026, as investors and technology executives gathered at the UBS AI in Entertainment Summit at Shutters on the Beach in Santa Monica, a plane circled overhead carrying a simple message: “SAY NO TO SUNO.” A second banner could just as easily have read, “Stealing Music Is Bad Karma.” The scene was more than a protest against a single AI music company. It was a reminder that technology itself is neither good nor evil; what matters is how humans choose to use it. Throughout history, some of the most transformative technologies have been driven by the same motivations that power every bully: greed and fear. Fear of being left behind. Fear of missing out. Greed for market share, dominance, and wealth and crushing anyone who gets in the way. The generative AI race increasingly appears to be driven—and corroded—by both.



That is why the protest above Santa Monica was about more than music. It connected directly to a broader national backlash against the infrastructure being built to support the AI economy. Across the United States, communities are fighting data centers, transmission lines, water consumption, tax subsidies, and industrial development projects that many believe are being imposed without meaningful public consent. Residents from Texas to Georgia to Louisiana are asking the same basic question: who benefits, and who pays the price?

In the case of generative AI, artists argue that they are among those paying the price.

The Human Artistry Campaign demonstration took place on the same day that Suno announced a funding round exceeding $400 million at a valuation of approximately $5.4 billion. Let it not be said that music has no value and that Suno is not free riding on a thriving market to extract their absurd valuation.

While Silicon Valley investors celebrated another milestone in AI’s rapid expansion, the protest highlighted an uncomfortable reality: much of the value being created by generative AI companies originates from extracting human expression while paying no regard whatsoever to those humans. Whether the source material is music, visual art, photography, authors, voice performances, or other creative works, creators continue to ask how their contributions found their way into commercial AI systems and demand the right to say no to Suno.

SANTA MONICA, CALIFORNIA – JUNE 03: A plane sponsored by Human Artistry protesting Suno’s use of AI is pictured on display during Suno’s annual meeting on June 03, 2026 in Santa Monica, California. (Photo by Anna Webber/Getty Images for Human Artistry Campaign)

The narrative that the AI labs want you to focus on is often framed as a conflict between innovation and regulation. That framing misses the point. The real question is whether innovation requires the abandonment of consent, compensation, and accountability. Human Artistry’s message was not anti-technology. Rather, it was that technology should serve human beings rather than treating them as raw material for extraction.

That concern increasingly links artist-rights advocates with communities opposing AI infrastructure projects using eminent domain powers to seize homes and compel residents to acept 765kV transmission lines. Both groups are confronting different manifestations of the same phenomenon: the concentration of economic gains among a relatively small number of companies while costs are dispersed across creators, workers, taxpayers, ratepayers, and local communities. One side sees its creative works absorbed into training datasets. The other sees land, water, energy resources, and public subsidies redirected toward facilities designed to power those systems.

Viewed through that lens, the protest at Shutters on the Beach becomes part of a much larger story. The controversy surrounding generative AI is no longer confined to copyright litigation or entertainment-industry politics. It now reaches questions of energy policy, infrastructure planning, local governance, environmental impact, and economic fairness.

The image of a protest banner flying above an investor summit captures that convergence perfectly. Below, financiers discussed the future of artificial intelligence and celebrated millions of dollars in new investment while licking their IPO chops in drooling anticipation of getting richer still on the backs of humanity. Above, artists and advocates posed a simpler question: if the future is being built on human creativity, shouldn’t the humans who created it have a meaningful voice in how that future is constructed?


That question is impossible to ignore. As billions continue to flow into AI companies and the infrastructure supporting them, the debate is no longer merely about technology. It is about power, consent, and who gets to decide how the benefits of human creativity and expression are captured by the Big Tech kleptocrats.

by Trichordist

@musicFIRST: Pass the American Music Fairness Act

For decades, AM/FM radio stations in the United States have paid songwriters and publishers when music is played on the air, but not the performers, musicians, producers, or record labels behind the sound recordings themselves.

The bipartisan American Music Fairness Act would finally close that loophole by requiring terrestrial radio broadcasters to pay artists for the use of their recordings — just like streaming services, satellite radio, and digital platforms already do. The bill also includes protections for small and local broadcasters and public radio.

Artists deserve to be paid when billion-dollar radio companies profit from their work. Please sign the letter here.

by Trichordist Editor

The Growing Backlash Against AI Data Centers: Local Resistance and the Infrastructure Crunch

As we’ve reported many times, communities across the US are increasingly pushing back against the explosive growth of AI-driven data centers. Major concerns include skyrocketing electricity demand, massive water consumption for cooling, noise pollution from giant fans, loss of prime agricultural and residential land, and rising utility bills passed on to local residents. As of May 2026, independent trackers report approximately 69–78 U.S. jurisdictions that have enacted bans, restrictions, or moratoriums on new data centers. Many of these measures also target the new high-voltage transmission lines required to power them.

This wave of resistance highlights a deepening tension between the rapid expansion of AI infrastructure and local priorities around quality of life, sustainability, and community control.

1. Michigan: The Epicenter of Local Moratoriums

I think you could safely say that Michigan currently leads the nation in local opposition to data center construction, largely triggered by the controversial $16+ billion OpenAI-Oracle Stargate AI data center project in Saline Township, Washtenaw County. Despite a 4-1 township planning commission vote against rezoning and strong resident protests, the Stargate construction project advanced through legal channels, igniting widespread defensive actions across the state.

  • More than 50 communities (cities and townships) have enacted temporary moratoriums, covering roughly 1,500 square miles — an area comparable to the size of Rhode Island.
  • Between 25 and 51 active local moratoriums are in place as of early 2026.
  • State lawmakers have introduced bills (HB 5594–5596) calling for a one-year statewide pause on new hyperscale data centers, along with stricter rules on water and electricity connections.
  • Some utilities, such as Ypsilanti, have imposed their own 12-month bans on water hookups for large AI facilities—but that will eventually expire.

Key issues in Michigan should sound familiar: massive water usage, strain on the electrical grid, and the loss of local zoning authority.

2. Virginia: Transmission Line Battles in “Data Center Alley”

Virginia is home to the highest concentration of data centers in the United States (over 550 facilities), particularly in Northern Virginia. Opposition here focuses heavily on both the data centers and the extensive transmission lines needed to support them.

  • Strong protests in Loudoun, Prince William, Hanover, and other counties against new projects and expansions.
  • Major conflicts over high-voltage lines such as the Valley Link and Joshua Falls projects, which cross multiple counties and impact neighborhoods, historic sites, and conserved rural land.
  • Dominion Energy has faced repeated legal and community challenges regarding route selections.
  • Legislative debates continue over ending billions in tax incentives and studies projecting residential electricity rate increases of up to $37 per month by 2040.
Breakfast at Buck’s of Woodside—if you’re not at the table you are on the menu

3. Georgia: Statewide Pause Efforts Amid High Project Volume

Georgia has seen hundreds of announced data center projects, prompting both local and statewide responses.

  • Bills such as HB 1059 and HB 1012 propose temporary statewide pauses on new permitting (potentially until 2027–2028) to allow time for impact studies.
  • Several counties, including DeKalb and Camden, have passed moratoriums ranging from several months to a year while updating zoning ordinances.
  • Residents voice concerns about energy costs, water consumption, loss of land, and whether tax incentives truly benefit local communities.

Georgia’s combination of legislative proposals and county-level actions reflects growing resistance in a rapidly developing market.

4. North Carolina: Rising Local and Policy Pushback

North Carolina ranks among the top states for new moratorium activity as data center developers expand beyond traditional East Coast hubs.

  • Multiple counties and municipalities have passed restrictions or temporary moratoriums citing infrastructure strain, zoning issues, and community impacts.
  • Policy proposals such as HB 1063 seek to require hyperscale developers to fully cover the costs of power, water, and grid upgrades rather than passing them to ratepayers.
  • Growing focus on the environmental and visual effects of both data centers and supporting transmission lines.

North Carolina represents an emerging hotspot where early local actions may shape future statewide policy.

5. Indiana: County-Level Resistance and High-Stakes Conflicts

Indiana has seen intense localized opposition, particularly in rural counties.

  • Counties such as White and Fulton have enacted 6-to-12-month moratoriums to study impacts and strengthen local ordinances.
  • Trackers show at least 6 formal actions, with several others in discussion.
  • Primary concerns include the conversion of prime agricultural land, rising utility rates, and the industrialization of rural communities.

Indiana illustrates how even mid-sized proposals can trigger strong community responses and political tension.

Broader Implications and the Path Forward

The five most active states — Michigan, Virginia, Georgia, North Carolina, and Indiana — capture the national picture. Resistance is bipartisan, spans urban and rural areas, and increasingly includes opposition to the massive transmission lines that accompany data center projects.

Common themes include fears that data centers consume disproportionate amounts of power and water while shifting costs onto existing residents. Proponents argue these facilities bring jobs, tax revenue, and are essential for America’s AI competitiveness. Critics insist that growth must be responsible, with full cost recovery, better siting practices, efficiency standards, and genuine community input.

As AI demand continues to surge, this local “revolt” tests whether the physical infrastructure can scale fast enough without compromising quality of life and environmental goals. I think the national consensus is a big no.

Expect more moratoriums, ballot initiatives, legal battles, and negotiations in the coming months. The outcome will significantly influence not only the future of AI but also national energy policy and land-use planning for years to come.

by thetrichordist

A Subtle Shift in US AI Policy and Why Artists Should Pay Attention

Something is moving in Washington.

A recent report suggests that the Trump administration is considering a new executive order on artificial intelligence. On its face, that might sound like more of the same—another round of AI policy chatter promoted by David Sacks, the Silicon Valley lobbyist and billionaire investor who has been pushing a “don’t slow it down” approach.

But this time feels different.

Sacks appears to have gotten pushed out at least a bit. Don’t count the chickens just yet. But the shift in tone matters. And the timing matters even more. The order is reportedly being weighed ahead of Trump’s visit to China, where AI development has become a central axis of geopolitical competition.

That context changes the story. For the past several years, the dominant policy posture around AI has been simple: don’t slow down innovation. Because China.

That argument has been doing a lot of work. It has been used to wave away concerns about training data, to discourage state and local oversight of data center buildouts, and to greenlight massive infrastructure commitments—including dedicated nuclear power for AI campuses run by Google, Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon.

In other words: build the machine first. Deal with the consequences later.

Artists have been the raw material for that strategy.

Musicians, book authors, visual artists—these are not just inputs. They are the training ground for systems that are now capable of producing substitutive outputs that overwhelm creators and flood markets. And until now, the White House policy conversation has largely treated that massive theft as an acceptable cost of staying ahead led by David Sacks, R Street Institute and the hyperscalers.

What makes this potential executive order interesting is that it suggests a shift away from that posture. If the administration is preparing to meet with China on AI, it has an incentive to show that the United States takes control, governance, and strategic resources seriously. And in this context, creative works start to look less like “free fuel” and more like national assets.

That may matter for artists.

Because once you recognize that AI systems derive value from the signals embedded in creative works—voice, tone, style, expression—you start to see those works differently. They are not just content. They are repositories of identity and cultural value.

And they are being extracted at scale.

A more protective policy framework—whether it focuses on model review, training data standards, or provenance—creates an opening. It creates space for the idea that artists are not just upstream contributors, but stakeholders whose work underpins the entire system.

This doesn’t mean the executive order, if it comes, will solve the problem. It won’t.

But it could mark an inflection point.

If policymakers begin to treat AI not just as a technology race but as a resource competition, then the role of creators becomes harder to ignore. You can’t claim to lead in AI while simultaneously disregarding the human material that makes those systems work.

That contradiction is starting to surface. The industry allowed artists and even copyright itself to be lumped in with zoning boards as “bureaucracy” which in turn allowed David Sacks and his ilk to try to create an alternate universe where “innovation” ran wild to “beat China” while also selling chips to China out the back door.

For artists, the takeaway is simple: pay attention to the shift in tone. Policy signals often precede legal ones. What gets framed as a national priority today can become a regulatory framework tomorrow.

For the first time in a while, there are signs that the conversation may be moving—however slightly—toward recognizing the value that artists bring to the AI ecosystem.

Sacks may not be gone. Silicon Valley rarely loses outright, just look at the MLC. But even a partial shift away from the “move fast and ingest everything” playbook is meaningful.

Because for artists, the question has never been whether AI will be built.

The question is whether it will be built on you or with you.

by Trichordist

Know Your MLC: Highest Compensated Employees 2024 #TheReup

The MLC, Inc. has to disclose its “highest compensated” employees on its nonprofit Form 990 tax return for 2024. The Copyright Office has spent that last two years reviewing public comments on whether the MLC, Inc. should be renewed for another five years—that’s right, two of the five year renewal period. Maybe they forgot to let us know their decision? The party is obviously still going strong.

by Trichordist Editor

Phonorecords V and the “39 Steps” Problem: Time for the CRB to Fix Streaming Mechanicals

Everybody knows that the boat is leaking, everybody knows that the captain lied….
Everybody Knows by Leonard Cohen

We are now well into the next Phonorecords proceeding at the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) where the government sets mechanical royalty rates for songwriters. Readers may remember that the last rate-setting was Phonorecords IV where Trichordist helped spread the word about the attempted end run around songwriters to freeze physical rates (vinyl & downloads) at 9.1¢ for another five years but instead resulted in an increase to 12¢ plus a cost of living adjustment which has now increased to 13.1¢. (In a demonstration of humility and lack of pomposity, these proceedings are given Roman numerals like the Super Bowl, so the current example of gladiatorial combat is titled Phonorecords V.)

Inside the years-long litigation-like proceeding, there is an issue hiding in plain sight inside the existing and ancient streaming mechanical royalty rate structure that we fondly call “the 39 steps” in honor of John Buchan, Alfred Hitchcock and Richard Hannay. Despite the blood lust for complexity from the ancien régime that clings to its one sided royalty pool, there is one part of this unfair business practice that the CRB can and should address this time around.

Start with the basics. The streaming mechanical formula—the so-called “39 steps”—is built on a simple premise: we are calculating royalties for the use of musical works protected by the Copyright Act. The inputs and deductions in that formula are not abstract accounting categories. They are supposed to reflect real payments for real statutory rights.

That premise is now under pressure because of…wait for it…artificial intelligence and the AI slop that is flooding the market.

The rise of generative AI has introduced a new category of output that does not fit neatly within the Copyright Act. The U.S. Copyright Office has made clear that works generated entirely by AI are not copyrightable, and that protection exists only to the extent of meaningful human authorship in a proportion yet to be determined. (Courts have moved in the same direction, and the Supreme Court’s denial of cert in Thaler v. Perlmutter leaves that framework intact.)

Yet the streaming mechanical formula has no explicit mechanism to deal with AI slop. That creates a risk on two fronts.

We have to consider the royalty pool itself. The compulsory mechanical license applies when the exclusive rights of a copyright owner in a musical work are implicated. If a so-called “AI track” is not a protected musical work, then there is a serious question whether it belongs in the section 115 system at all. Treating non-copyrightable output as if it were a statutory musical work risks diluting the pool for actual rightsholders.

And then, of course, we have the Step 2 deduction for performance royalties. The regulation allows services to subtract payments for the public performance of musical works before calculating the payable pool. But what happens if a service characterizes payments to a platform like AIMPRO as “performance royalties”? If those payments are not, in fact, for the public performance of a copyrightable musical work, they should not reduce the pool. Otherwise, the 39 steps formula starts to leak money, and eventually leak in a big way.

Not only that, but if the U.S. Copyright Office ultimately articulates a workable “human authorship” framework for AI-assisted works during the Phonorecords V rate period, the downstream impact on the Copyright Act section 115 system could be profound: for the first time, the “39 steps” calculation may have to accommodate fractional copyrightability within a single work. Instead of treating a musical work as an either/or, services and the MLC could be forced to parse which portions of a track are attributable to human authorship and therefore eligible for royalties, and which are not. That would introduce a new layer of allocation on top of an already complex formula—effectively embedding micro-level authorship determinations into macro-level royalty calculations—and raising the administrative, evidentiary, and dispute-resolution burdens across the entire system.

The key point is that the CRB does not need to resolve all questions of AI copyrightability to act here for purposes of the 39 Steps. It can simply clarify what is already in the statute and the regulation: The formula applies only to payments that correspond to rights in nondramatic musical works, and deductions are limited to payments that genuinely compensate the public performance of such works. That is not a policy innovation outside the scope of the CRB’s mandate from Congress. It is a classification rule.

If there is doubt about whether a category of material such as purely generative AI output qualifies as a “musical work” for these purposes, that is a question the CRB can refer to the Register of Copyrights in a pinch. But the CRB should not leave the door open for the mechanical royalty pool to be diluted by payments for things that fall outside the Copyright Act altogether. If you get a paycheck every week this may not be that important to you, but if you live off of royalties it damn sure is.

This may also be the moment to ask a more fundamental question: whether the industry should abandon the “39 steps” construct altogether. Whatever its historical justification—particularly in Phonorecords I back in 2009, where publishers were trying to shield early services like MusicNet from crushing retroactive exposure—the current formula has outlived its usefulness. Today, it functions less as a fair pricing mechanism and more as a constraint, allowing services to use their complementary oligopoly market power to effectively cap mechanical royalties by anchoring them to a royalty pool determined in part based on what labels get paid. The result is a structurally odd feedback loop in which sound recording deals influence the value of adjacent musical works. A cleaner alternative would be a flat, escalating penny-rate framework, like what the Judges adopted for both physical and downloads as well as webcasting royalties—simpler, more transparent, and far less susceptible to strategic manipulation.

We have been here before. The history of section 115 is, in many ways, the history of closing gaps between statutory language and market behavior.

Phonorecords V presents another such moment.

The CRB should take it.

by Trichordist