Why collective advocacy must amplify individual voices, not replace them
In music policy, unity is powerful. But it can also become a trap.
An open letter with hundreds of signatures creates visibility. A coalition can gain access that few individual organisations could achieve alone. An umbrella body can establish common ground across a fragmented sector.
But when organisations transfer their entire public voice to a collective, they risk removing the very thing policymakers need to understand: how the same decision affects different creators, businesses and parts of the music ecosystem in fundamentally different ways.
A common position is almost inevitably a compromise. At its best, it expresses principles shared by everyone. At its worst, it primarily reflects the interests of the largest, most established or best resourced members.
Neither version tells the whole story.
What happens after a common campaign ?
The recent debate over artificial intelligence and copyright offers a useful example.
The UK’s Make It Fair campaign brought together an unusually broad range of interests. Artists, songwriters and performers stood alongside record companies, publishers, collecting societies, newspapers and other businesses built on copyright.
These parties occupy very different positions in the creative value chain, but they could agree on a central principle: AI companies should not be allowed to use protected works without permission or payment. Make It Fair campaign
More than 1,000 artists, including Kate Bush, Annie Lennox and Damon Albarn, also participated in the silent album Is This What We Want? Individual creators spoke publicly, industry bodies submitted evidence and parliamentarians challenged the government’s proposed approach. Associated Press
The UK consultation received 11,520 responses. In March 2026, the government confirmed that its originally preferred broad copyright exception, under which rightsholders would have been expected to opt out, had been rejected by most respondents and was no longer its preferred way forward. UK Government report
This demonstrated the best use of a common campaign: a clear shared demand reinforced by individual testimony, specialist evidence, political relationships and persistent engagement.
But the next stage revealed why the collective position could never be the whole strategy.
Once the principle of licensing had gained ground, the largest commercial actors were in a position to negotiate directly with technology platforms. In October 2025, Spotify announced that it would develop AI products in partnership with Sony Music Group, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, Merlin and Believe. The initiative promised consent, choice, attribution and new revenue streams for artists and songwriters. Spotify
Creator alliances subsequently demanded transparency about AI agreements between major record companies and technology businesses. They warned that composers and songwriters lacked the information needed to understand how their works, rights and future remuneration would be affected. Some explicitly cautioned against repeating the inequalities of the streaming era. International Council of Music Creators
This is precisely the problem.
Creators, publishers, labels and collecting societies can share an interest in defending copyright against unlicensed use. But when licensing models, revenue allocation and contractual terms are negotiated, they are not necessarily sitting on the same side of the table.
The collective campaign may open the door. Those with the greatest economic weight, legal capacity and commercial relationships are often the first through it. Smaller organisations and individual creators may remain outside, waiting for a result or for the next letter they will be invited to sign.
A common position must never be mistaken for identical interests.
A large coalition can still be ignored
The implementation of the EU AI Act illustrates another limitation.
A broad coalition of authors, performers, publishers, producers and other rightsholders participated in the development of the General Purpose AI Code of Practice. The coalition included both creators and businesses that invest in, administer and commercially exploit their work.
In March 2025, the coalition stated that many of its substantive concerns had been ignored or dismissed. It argued that the proposed code set the threshold for compliance too low to provide meaningful tools for creators and rightsholders to exercise their rights. GESAC coalition statement
The final code was nevertheless published and endorsed as a voluntary means for AI companies to demonstrate compliance. European Commission
The lesson is not that coalitions are useless. A long list of organisations can demonstrate the breadth of concern. But it cannot by itself ensure that policymakers address the different realities hidden behind their signatures.
“One voice” may be easy to acknowledge. It is also easy to process, file and move beyond.
Advocacy begins with the recipient
Effective advocacy is not simply the ability to describe your own position. It requires understanding what the recipient needs in order to absorb the message and act on it.
What decision can this policymaker actually make? What evidence do they need? Which interests are they balancing? What political, legal or administrative reason could make helping you possible?
This matters most when speaking to people who do not already agree with you.
Those who share your position will often meet both your organisation and its umbrella body. The real challenge is reaching those who are unconvinced or inclined to prioritise another interest.
For them, a single collective letter can be convenient. They can hold one meeting, declare that “the sector has been consulted” and avoid examining the individual situations in which the consequences of policy become visible.
Yet the answers often lie precisely in those differences.
A composer, an independent publisher, a major label, a performer, a digital platform and a collecting society may support the same principle while having very different economic interests and contractual relationships. In some situations, they are partners. In others, they are negotiating counterparts.
Cooperation is valuable. Interchangeability is an illusion.
Centralisation is already music’s defining challenge
This is particularly relevant in Sweden, my home country and one of the world’s earliest and most developed streaming markets.
Swedish music streamers spend more time listening to digital music than their counterparts elsewhere in the Nordic region, an average of four hours per day according to the 2024 Digital Music in the Nordics study. Spotify, itself founded in Sweden, is a leading platform in both the Swedish and international streaming markets. Polaris Nordic report Nordic Music Creators
This is not only a question of market share or royalty distribution. It concerns cultural diversity.
When access to audiences is shaped by a small number of platforms, recommendation systems and commercial priorities, fewer actors influence what is discovered, repeated and ultimately considered valuable.
Our response should not reproduce the same centralisation in advocacy.
If the diversity of music is represented through one institutional voice and one approved set of talking points, we make the sector appear more uniform than it is. We also encourage policymakers to search for a universal solution where none exists.
Technology could instead help us move towards adaptable models that give listeners more of what they want while still allowing them to encounter what they do not yet know exists.
But this requires policymakers to hear from the full range of people creating, investing in and bringing music to audiences, not only those already large enough to dominate the conversation.
An organisation must first know its own voice
New organisations need to establish their identity, expertise and relationships, both for their own sake and to become meaningful participants in collective efforts.
A coalition is strengthened by members that bring recognised knowledge, constituencies and political credibility. An organisation that has never developed its own voice can add another logo to a letter, but it cannot contribute the same independent authority.
From my experience with the European Composer and Songwriter Alliance, ECSA, we were initially extremely restrictive about signing statements with others. This was not because we opposed cooperation. A new alliance first had to establish its identity and build direct relationships with the people able to influence the future of those we represented.
Once that strength existed, we could join other music organisations on carefully selected common positions without disappearing into them.
But no identity remains visible automatically.
If collective statements become the main strategy, even an established organisation can gradually fade from the policymaker’s view. Its specialist knowledge is absorbed into a generic “sector position”. Its direct relationships weaken. Decision makers may know that the organisation signed the letter without understanding why its particular voice matters.
Collective strength depends on the continuing strength of its constituent voices.
“Together as well” is not the same as “together instead”
Organisations without their own public affairs capacity may be tempted to outsource advocacy to an umbrella body, a collecting society or a broader cultural coalition.
But the essential expertise already exists among the people they represent. The organisation’s responsibility is to gather that knowledge, formulate it and bring it into the political process. External specialists and coalitions can strengthen this work. They cannot permanently replace it.
The sequence matters.
First, know who you represent, what distinguishes their situation and what only your organisation can credibly say. Develop your evidence, language and relationships, including relationships with those who are not already convinced.
Then identify where your interests align with others. Establish shared principles, participate in the umbrella organisation and sign the collective letter when it strengthens the objective.
Afterwards, continue speaking.
Explain why the common issue matters specifically to your members. Provide evidence nobody else can provide. Be clear about where your interests overlap with those of your partners and where they do not.
Unity does not mean that everyone has the same journey.
It can show that we have agreed on a path towards a shared destination. But some of us will need to leave at different stops, take different connections or continue further than others.
A healthy music ecosystem needs common causes. It also needs independent voices with the confidence, knowledge and capacity to speak for themselves.
The collective voice can make the message louder.
Only the individual voices can reveal what the message truly means.
#MusicIndustry #CreatorsRights #Copyright #ArtificialIntelligence #CulturalDiversity