At the end of 2024, the UK government opened a public consultation with a proposal that alarmed much of the creative world: allowing artificial intelligence models to train on copyright-protected works without requiring explicit consent from rights holders.
The proposed mechanism was an opt-out model. If you did not actively object to your work being used to train AI, silence would be treated as permission. For individual creators managing thousands of works across multiple platforms, the practical implications were stark.
The Industry Pushed Back
The response was clear and firm. More than 80 organizations representing authors, composers, and performers rejected the proposal, including figures like Paul McCartney and Kate Bush. Their position was not anti-technology. It was that consent is not a bureaucratic formality. It is the foundation of what Collective Management Organizations were built to protect.
An opt-out model places the burden of protection on the creator. A creator must actively monitor which AI companies are using their work, actively object to each one, and do so across multiple jurisdictions with different legal frameworks. For a songwriter managing a back catalog of five hundred works, this is effectively impossible without institutional support.
What Opt-In Looks Like in Practice
Three of the leading rights management bodies in the United Kingdom proposed an alternative: a voluntary opt-in collective licensing model for the use of creative works in AI training. Under this framework, creators actively choose to make their work available. AI developers access content that is legally cleared. The managing body ensures traceability and distributes compensation.
The logic mirrors exactly how collective management has worked for decades in other contexts. A broadcaster does not negotiate individually with every composer whose music plays on its platform. A collecting society manages that relationship at scale, on behalf of its members, with agreed rates and clear distribution mechanisms.
Denmark moved in a similar direction, piloting a model where publishers receive compensation specifically when their content is used in AI responses, with attribution and payment tied to concrete, measurable usage rather than a blanket licensing fee.
The Strategic Opportunity for CMOs
For Collective Management Organizations, this moment is not only a threat to manage. It is an opportunity to extend the mandate they already hold.
The infrastructure that CMOs have built over decades, including member registries, repertoire databases, licensing workflows, and distribution systems, is precisely what AI licensing at scale requires. The question is whether organizations are positioned to act quickly enough to be part of designing the solution rather than simply responding to what tech companies propose.
Several things need to be true for this opportunity to materialize. CMOs need a clear position on whether they support opt-in or opt-out frameworks, and they need to communicate that position actively to regulators. They need to invest in or partner with technology capable of attribution at the level of granularity that AI licensing will require. And they need to move faster than their traditional governance structures typically allow.
What the Next Five Years Will Look Like
The legal landscape around AI and copyright is being defined right now, case by case, jurisdiction by jurisdiction. The GEMA ruling in Germany, the UK licensing proposals, the Danish pilot, and the growing body of litigation in the United States are all pieces of the same emerging framework.
Organizations that engage with this process actively will have a seat at the table when the frameworks solidify. Those that wait will inherit whatever framework was designed without them.
The future of collective management in the age of AI is not written. That is precisely the point. The organizations that understand this moment as a design opportunity rather than a crisis to survive will be the ones that thrive in the decade ahead.
The Labs at global.esur works directly with Collective Management Organizations to navigate emerging technology challenges, including AI licensing strategy and digital transformation. Contact us to explore what this means for your organization.