FairMusE: Rethinking Fairness in Europe’s Music Ecosystem

Fair MusE – Promoting Fairness of the Music Ecosystem in a Platform-Dominated and Post-Pandemic Europe explores how fairness can be embedded in the rapidly evolving digital music landscape. It examines how online platforms, artificial intelligence, and data-driven distribution models are reshaping the creation, circulation, and remuneration of recorded music in Europe. Bringing together scholars, technology experts, policymakers, and industry stakeholders, Fair MusE analyses the systemic imbalances that have emerged in a market increasingly governed by algorithms and global intermediaries.

Fair MusE’s interdisciplinary approach combines legal analysis, economic data modelling, and policy design to develop a coherent framework for fairer value distribution, transparency, and stronger protection for creators. It also investigates how EU copyright law (especially through the 2019 Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market) and broader EU digital policy instruments - particularly the Digital Services Act, Digital Markets Act and AI Act - can foster equitable access to culture and innovation.

Hosted by Católica Global School of Law and the Research Centre for the Future of Law, the €3-million Horizon Europe research project has been conceived, managed and coordinated by Giuseppe Mazziotti, Abreu Professor in Law and Innovation. He leads a team of lawyers, policy analysts, media economists and data scientists from 9 partner institutions in 8 EU countries. Partners include universities, a think tank and a communication specialist who liaise with music industry experts, legal practitioners, academics, stakeholders and artists’ representatives, music data companies, and cultural institutions represented on the project’s Advisory Board.

Launched in March 2023, Fair MusE has strengthened Universidade Católica Portuguesa’s role as a hub of interdisciplinary research excellence in domains - such as law - where research often remains siloed and territorially segregated. Beyond academia, it has actively engaged with policy and creative communities across Europe, Turkey, USA, Brazil and other Latin American countries. A key highlight in Portugal was the December 2024 major policy workshop at the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, where EU officials, scholars, and industry representatives debated emerging evidence and policy options for the future of Europe’s digital music markets.

As the project advances towards its completion in February 2026, it continues to produce high-level research outputs, policy recommendations, and educational resources all, accessible via fairmuse.eu. 

By bridging academic inquiry and real-world impact, Fair MusE exemplifies the University’s commitment to fairness, innovation, and sustainability in the creative industries. Fair MusE’s manifesto and final outcomes reaffirm that fairness requires tangible tools to protect the interests of human creators - individually and collectively - from the growing power of Big Tech and generative AI technologies.

By Giuseppe Mazziotti, coordinator and principal investigator of Fair MusE.