Spain's SGAE Calls for AI Rules to Protect Human Creators at Billboard Latin Music Week
Spain wants rules that stop artificial intelligence from pushing human songwriters out of the music business. Cristina Perpiñá-Robert, director general of the Spanish Society of Authors and Publishers (SGAE), made the call on Tuesday, October 20, 2026, during a panel on AI-generated music at Billboard Latin Music Week in Miami Beach.
SGAE is a collecting society, an organisation that gathers royalties, the payments owed each time a song is played or copied, for authors and publishers. According to Billboard, Perpiñá-Robert said Spain is concerned that AI could completely replace human creators. She called for regulation to protect them.
She also said regulation on its own "is not enough." Her concern is that creators and authors are being left out of the business model altogether, meaning the way money from AI-made music is earned and shared.
The session was moderated by Tatiana Cirisano, vice president of music strategy at the research firm MIDiA Research. Pierre Hachar Jr., managing partner of The Hachar Law Group, was also on the panel, and he took a more practical view of the technology.
Hachar Jr. said most of his clients are already using AI, whether or not they admit it. He compared the current wave to earlier technologies that many in music first resisted, including streaming and production software such as Pro Tools, Reason, Logic and FL Studio. Those programs are used to record, arrange and produce tracks.
The panel was one of the sessions in the Latin Music Week programme, which ran from October 19 to 22, 2026, at the Faena Forum in Miami Beach. Billboard had listed the AI discussion among the 10 business panels to watch ahead of the event.
The week closes with the 2026 Billboard Latin Music Awards. The ceremony was scheduled to air live on Thursday, October 22, 2026, from the James L. Knight Center in Miami, on Telemundo and on Peacock, the streaming service.
For the people who write and publish songs, the debate on stage came down to money and credit. The question was not only whether AI tools are used in music, but who gets paid when they are, and who is left out.
