Music publishers warn Australia against weakening copyright for AI training

Australian musicians’ work has already been used to train AI without compensation, the International Confederation of Music Publishers told the Guardian. Its warning puts artists’ control and payment at the center of a renewed copyright dispute: the group says technology companies are pressuring Australia to weaken protections by tying investment to legal changes.

John Phelan, managing director of the publishers’ group, accused AI companies of trying to “strong-arm” Australian policymakers. ICMP represents Sony, Warner and Universal, alongside thousands of independent music publishers. Its intervention comes as parliamentary inquiry leaders recommend examining copyright settings while keeping creators in control and ensuring they are paid.

Lyrics and a dataset underpin the warning

ICMP supplied the Guardian with evidence showing Google’s Gemini reproducing lyrics by Kylie Minogue, G-Flip and Nick Cave. The group presented those examples as a challenge to the AI industry’s claim that Australian copyright rules keep Australian content out of model training. The Guardian said it had approached Google for comment.

Phelan also pointed to a training dataset described by the Atlantic in June. It contained more than 12 million songs taken from YouTube videos, including tracks by Minogue, Cave and Hilltop Hoods. That dataset is earlier evidence cited in ICMP’s new warning, rather than a newly disclosed collection.

The concern extends beyond internationally known artists. In July, ABC reported that Perth band Smol Fish had not known its music appeared in AI-training datasets until contacted by triple j Hack. Melbourne band Playlunch also had music in the collections. Artists interviewed by ABC said they had not consented to, or been compensated for, that use.

It’s fair to say the global music industry, as well as all creative industries worldwide we work with, are appalled by the idea of a statutory scheme or a government deal which would interfere with how Australian industries work and contract around the world.

John Phelan, ICMP managing director, speaking to the Guardian

Lawmakers reopen the copyright question

The parliamentary AI inquiry’s Labor chair, Jo Briskey, and Liberal deputy chair, senator Jonathon Duniam, wrote jointly to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese recommending a review. Their letter called for the government to “examine current copyright settings” while preserving creators’ control and payment. It is a recommendation to examine the rules, not an enacted copyright change.

Labor and Liberal committee members described a stalemate. They said AI companies were already training on copyrighted works in the United States without compensating creators, but were withholding training of their most advanced models in Australia unless local copyright laws changed.

Albanese had set out a firm position in July: artists should decide whether their work is used to build or train AI, including the price of that use. Anything less, he said, was “theft”.

AI companies dispute the licensing premise

Anthropic special envoy Jeffrey Bleich told the committee the company was not dictating terms. It had explained how training rules affected its capacity to operate in Australia. “You can’t license the entire internet,” he said, arguing that viewing and studying publicly available information was essentially what training involved.

Bleich said Anthropic understood that training could be deemed illegal under Australian law without licences from every relevant rights holder. OpenAI economic policy chief Adam Cohen defended the US fair-use copyright exception as protection for technological development. He also cited agreements with News Corp and the Guardian as examples of deals OpenAI makes despite its position that US law does not require them.