The success of female artists is helping stop a 20-year decline in music sales in the UK
Physical music sales rose to 17.4 million, but the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) warns that AI copyright exemptions could harm the UK music industry.
Although Charli XCX’s summer hit has faded, albums by female artists helped stop a 20-year decline in physical music sales.
According to the BPI, women led the music charts this year, with female artists topping the singles chart for 34 weeks out of 52 and filling half of the top 20 album spots for the first time.
Albums by Taylor Swift, Sabrina Carpenter, Charli XCX, and Billie Eilish helped drive growth, as total sales from streaming and physical music rose by nearly 10%, reaching over 200 million albums or their equivalents.
Despite this positive growth, the BPI warned that government plans to let AI companies bypass copyright laws could put the UK’s music industry in danger.
Despite the growing digital threat, sales of physical music formats, especially vinyl, performed well.
Vinyl sales have been increasing for 17 years in a row, rising by 9% to 6.7 million units. Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department topped the charts, even beating Oasis’s Definitely Maybe, boosted by the excitement around the band’s reunion.
CD sales have been falling in recent years, but they only dropped by 300,000 to 10.5 million, with Coldplay’s Moon Music leading the way. Including 182,000 sales of other formats like cassettes, total sales of physical music rose by 1.4 million to 17.4 million, the first increase in 20 years.
Streaming still dominated, rising by 11 million to 178 million “album-equivalent sales,” pushing the overall market to 200.5 million, a growth of nearly 9.7%.
Even though the UK music scene seems to be doing well, the BPI has warned that AI poses a big threat to artists.
Jo Twist, the BPI’s CEO, said that the UK’s creative work and human creativity are at risk because of proposed changes to UK copyright law. These changes would let big tech companies use artists’ work to train AI without paying or asking for permission.
Groups representing creative people in music, literature, film, and photography have strongly opposed these plans to allow AI training without copyright protection.
Twist said that Labour’s ideas would not be the right way to unlock the exciting potential of AI.
“By directly addressing the global challenges related to AI, copyright, and streaming fraud, and encouraging consumers to use practical models like paid streaming subscriptions, we can help protect the value of British music. This will allow our industry to grow and thrive both in the UK and globally,” she said.
“The UK is still a major force in world music, but we can’t take this for granted. We need policies that support human creativity and allow for investment in the next generation of British talent.”
Published: 31th December 2024
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