Australian musicians sound warning note after Nick Cave, Kylie and many more slurped into AI training tool
The datasets were proof of the theft of creative work, according to music licensing organisation APRA AMCOS, which represents 128,000 members in Australasia.
“Major tech platforms have not come to the table. Not once. Instead, they have lobbied governments, circulated policy papers, and proposed solutions designed to extinguish any obligation to pay,” its chief executive, Dean Ormston said.
Two large screens hang side by side in a darkened gallery, each with the same image of Cate Blanchett at a lectern.
Australia’s intellectual property laws hold that permission should be granted and terms, such as payment, agreed on before copyright works are used, but the IT industry has pushed for text and data mining exemptions to the laws.
In August 2025, the Productivity Commission floated changes that would have legalised AI companies using content without paying creators, but the federal government ruled out the changes in October.>
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2026/jun/26/australian-musicians-aussie-music-ai-training-tool-nick-cave-kylie-minogue-paul-dempseyOpen linkView original on aussie.zone
1 reply
Wouldn't it be wonderful if, on the heals of everyone copying our teen social media laws, Australia we're to introduce a mandatory per token royalty for copyright holder not proved to be excluded from the training data, and everyone in the world were to follow suit.
We've got to assume anything ever written, photographed, spoken, or recorded has been scraped, so the burden of proof needs to be to prove it wasn't used or derived from.
Otherwise all copyright is dead. Why can an AI company steal work, but someone else not?
If Men at Work can be sued for taking a riff from a kids song, then surely