As we head into 2024, CMU recently sat down with the bosses of many of the music industry’s trade organisations to talk about their work, the key challenges faced by their members, and what to expect in the year ahead. Today, Silvia Montello, CEO of the UK’s Association Of Independent Music.
What kept the AIM team busy in 2023?
During 2023, AIM worked hard on redeveloping and improving our relationships with many of our key industry association partners, both in the UK and overseas, in order to build closer collaboration which will benefit our community, AIM members and the industry as a whole.
Our engagement with government and policy-makers has provided a much greater understanding of the breadth – and importance – of our varied and diverse independent community. We’ll continue this engagement going forward in 2024.
As an organisation, our 2023 awards ceremony was a highlight of the year, showcasing great talent and honouring Björk, one of the great independent music pioneers. This was the first time she attended an awards ceremony in many years – much to the excitement of everyone at AIM, and our wider membership!
What are the biggest challenges for your members in 2024?
Looking at the year ahead, some of the biggest challenges for the independent community in 2024 are consistent with challenges generally across the industry.
Two of the biggest challenges are the threats to human creativity and intellectual property presented by both AI technologies and streaming fraud – in all its many guises.
AIM has worked closely with UK government representatives and our fellow music trade organisations to deliver a position paper on AI. This outlines the key concerns for protecting the sector, but also recognises and encourages the opportunities that AI technologies can bring to solving industry problems, and providing helpful creative and practical solutions for labels, artists and rightsholders.
Our work with our distributor community, key stakeholders and our anti-piracy protection providers has helped to outline some solutions and next steps to combat streaming fraud. In particular, we welcomed and supported the creation of the Music Fights Fraud Alliance initiative.
We are committed to continuing to work on both of these issues – AI and streaming fraud – as we go into 2024.
What other challenges will you be seeking to tackle this year?
Other big challenges include that of financial support and investment as the sector continues its post-COVID recovery, alongside dealing with the global economic challenges and cost of living crisis.
AIM has consistently provided a strong voice on these topics, and has called for renewed proposals for tax breaks and fiscal incentives for the music industry – and in particular for the sector’s SME independent businesses – to ensure a healthy and diverse recorded music sector that can provide the emerging talent and diversity of creativity needed for the UK music industry to continue to flourish.
Those proposals are enshrined in the Music Manifesto delivered by UK Music in 2023.
Alongside this, our Angel Investment Syndicate is being readied for full launch in 2024, bringing the opportunity for angel investment funding to AIM member labels. This is coupled with our partnership with EY which has already started delivering resources, workshops and pathway for funding and investment opportunities for the sector.
Recent proposals from Deezer and Spotify on streaming reform raised concerns over the impact this could have on the independent label sector – and in particular for emerging and developing talent, smaller labels, niche genres and deep catalogue.
Again, by engaging in detailed conversations with the platforms, and providing them with greater understanding of the concerns raised by our members – and the sector at large – AIM is working hard to ensure that any reforms to streaming remuneration don’t result in a two-tier system that could be detrimental to the financial and promotional opportunities for the independent community.
And what other notable projects or events should we look out for in 2024?
As we go into 2024 there are a number of notable and exciting things on the horizon.
These include the crucial next steps for the Music Climate Pact, helping to tackle the recorded music industry’s carbon emissions. We will also be working on new partnerships and initiatives to deliver a number of new and improved benefits and opportunities for our members throughout the year.
We’ll also be launching the next stage of our regions and nations strategy, to support independent music communities across the UK, as well as international collaborations to further increase outreach and visibility for our member labels, rightsholders and their artists.
Last but not least, 2024 is AIM’s 25th anniversary year, and we’ve got some very exciting plans – watch this space!