The International Confederation of Music Publishers (ICMP) has issued a stark warning to the Australian government, stating that the nation appears to be the only country among dozens approached to weaken copyright protections for artificial intelligence training. John Phelan, the ICMP managing director, described the pressure from technology firms as an attempt to “legitimise larceny” and accused them of trying to strong-arm policymakers into changing the law.
Unlicensed Training of Australian Artists
According to evidence presented to Guardian Australia, major AI models have already been trained on the works of prominent Australian musicians without compensation. The ICMP demonstrated that Google’s Gemini system was able to reproduce lyrics from artists including Kylie Minogue, Nick Cave, and G-Flip. This claim is supported by reports of a training dataset containing over 12 million songs sourced from YouTube, which includes tracks from these and other Australian acts.
Phelan noted that while the AI industry argues it cannot license the entire internet, the reality on the ground shows otherwise. He stated that tech companies are seeking legislative solutions to operate without licenses, viewing the legal framework as a way to secure their future business models amid rising investment costs and ongoing litigation in the United States.
Political Debate and Industry Pushback
The warning comes as a parliamentary committee on artificial intelligence reviews the current copyright landscape. Committee chairs Jo Briskey and Jonathon Duniam have recommended that the government examine current copyright settings to ensure creators retain control and receive payment. However, independent senator David Pocock has raised concerns that the committee’s position may have been predetermined by the prime minister’s office, a claim Briskey has rejected.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese previously stated that it would be “theft” if artists did not retain control over whether their work was used to build AI models. Despite this stance, government and opposition members have described the situation as a stalemate, noting that AI companies are withholding the deployment of frontier models in Australia due to existing copyright restrictions.
Representatives from the AI sector have defended their practices. Jeffrey Bleich, special envoy for Anthropic, told the committee that the company was not trying to dictate terms but was sharing information about the implications of operating in Australia. He argued that training involves studying billions of pieces of information available for viewing. Similarly, Adam Cohen of OpenAI pointed to the fair use exception in US law as a fundamental protection for technology development, citing existing deals with news organizations as examples of voluntary cooperation.
Phelan emphasized that 62 countries have considered similar legal changes, yet none have introduced a new text and data mining exception for commercial purposes or reduced exclusive copyright rights. He expressed that the global music and creative industries are appalled by the idea of a statutory scheme that would interfere with how Australian industries contract and operate worldwide. The Guardian Australia has also submitted to the inquiry, arguing that undermining copyright protection would have a profound impact on civil society and that copyright-protected material should only be available for AI training with explicit prior authorization.
Source: The Guardian
