Australian artists' music already used

AI has been trained on works by Kylie Minogue, Nick Cave and other Australian artists without compensation, the International Confederation of Music Publishers claims.

Google's AI reproduces Australian lyrics

Google's Gemini was able to reproduce lyrics from Kylie Minogue, G-Flip and Nick Cave, showing AI companies have trained on Australian content despite claiming copyright rules prevent this.

Training dataset pulled from YouTube

An AI training dataset reported by the Atlantic in June contains more than twelve million songs pulled from YouTube videos, including tracks from Minogue, Cave and Hilltop Hoods.

Tech firms lobby to weaken copyright

AI companies are asking Australian policymakers to change copyright laws to allow training on copyrighted works. The ICMP's John Phelan said they are trying to legitimise larceny.

“They're trying to strong-arm Australian policymakers into 'if you don't do this, we won't invest'.”

Australia alone considering the change

Of sixty two countries approached by AI companies to weaken copyright laws, Australia appears to be the only one considering doing so, the ICMP says.

Prime minister called it theft in July

In July, Anthony Albanese said it would be theft if artists did not retain control over whether their work was used to build and train AI, and what they were paid.

Parliamentary committee revisits copyright

Government and opposition members of a parliamentary committee on artificial intelligence this week described the current situation as a stalemate and recommended examining copyright settings.

AI firms claim they cannot operate

Anthropic's Jeffrey Bleich told the committee the company shared information about training implications with the government regarding its capacity to operate in Australia under existing law.

“You can't license the entire internet. Billions and billions of information exists there which is available to be viewed and studied, and that's essentially what training is.”

Music industry warns of global impact

The ICMP said the global music and creative industries are appalled by the idea of a statutory scheme that would interfere with how Australian industries work and contract worldwide.

“The world is very much watching what Australia does.”