Grammy-winning Pakistani singer Arooj Aftab has called for musicians to receive fair compensation whenever their recordings are used to train artificial intelligence (AI) models or generate new music, arguing that artists should be paid for the use of their work.
In two Instagram stories, Aftab shared campaign messages from United Musicians and Allied Workers (UMAW), a trade union representing music industry professionals, highlighting the need for transparency, proper labelling and fair remuneration as AI-generated music becomes increasingly prevalent.
The first post called for AI-generated recordings to be clearly labelled across the music industry, including by software developers, record labels, studios, distributors and retailers. The campaign argues that listeners should be able to distinguish music created using AI from recordings made by human artists.Sharing the message, Aftab highlighted how musicians’ work could be used to develop AI systems, writing: “Even if you don’t use AI to make music – it is going to use your music to make AI music!! So let’s get the rules right and get on with it.”
