A global music rights group says artificial intelligence has already been trained on songs by Australian artists, including Kylie Minogue and Nick Cave. The group says the artists were not paid for this use.
The International Confederation of Music Publishers (ICMP) made the claim to Guardian Australia. It represents Sony, Warner and Universal, as well as thousands of independent publishers on six continents.
The ICMP has warned the Australian government not to give in to pressure from tech companies seeking to weaken copyright law.
Music Group Says Australia Stands Alone
According to the ICMP, 62 countries have considered changing their copyright laws for AI training. The group says Australia appears to be the only one seriously considering it.
“There isn’t a single country among the other 61 ... which has introduced a new text and data mining exception for commercial purposes,” said John Phelan, the ICMP’s managing director.
Phelan said AI companies were asking policymakers to “legitimise larceny.” He said they were telling Australian officials, “if you don’t do this, we won’t invest.”
The AI industry says its models are not trained on Australian content because of local copyright rules. The ICMP disputes this.
In evidence given to Guardian Australia, the group showed Google’s Gemini reproducing lyrics from Kylie Minogue, G-Flip and Nick Cave. Google was approached for comment.
Phelan also pointed to a dataset reported by the Atlantic in June. It holds more than 12 million songs pulled from YouTube videos, including tracks by Minogue, Cave and Hilltop Hoods.
What AI Companies Told Lawmakers
Anthropic’s special envoy, Jeffrey Bleich, told the committee last week the company was not trying to dictate terms. He said it had shared information about the law’s impact on its “capacity to operate here.”
“You can’t license the entire internet,” Bleich said. He added that under current Australian law, training could be seen as illegal without a licence from every rights holder.
OpenAI’s chief of economic policy, Adam Cohen, said the fair use exception in US law “fundamentally protects” new technology. He pointed to the company’s deals with News Corp and the Guardian.
Phelan said he believes AI companies are worried about investment costs and ongoing US copyright lawsuits. He said they may be looking to Australia for a legal solution.
In July, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said it would be “theft” if artists lost control over whether their work was used to train AI. He also said they should be paid.
Guardian Australia told the inquiry that copyrighted material should only be used for AI training with the rights holder’s explicit prior permission.
This week, committee chair Jo Briskey of Labor and deputy chair Jonathon Duniam of the Liberals wrote to the prime minister. They recommended the government “examine current copyright settings” while ensuring creators keep control and are paid.
Independent senator David Pocock raised concerns that the committee’s position was set in advance by the prime minister, after staff edits were seen in the letter. Briskey has rejected the claim.
