‘Theft of Aussie culture’: Musicians’ warning amid fight for AI models to train off Australian books, music
Prominent Aussie musicians Holly Rankin, Dan McNamee and Yorta Yorta rapper Adam Briggs have warned against allowing AI to effectively steal the nation’s art.
Australian artists fighting a proposal to allow artificial intelligence to scrape data from music, books and other media say tech giants can afford to pay for use of their creative work, but “just don’t want to”.
Prominent local musicians have warned Australia should not allow AI to effectively steal the nation’s art at a Senate inquiry into the renewal of the federal government’s National Cultural Policy held in Canberra on Tuesday.
The Productivity Commission last month released an interim report suggesting the federal government create a text and data mining exemption for the Copyright Act to “keep pace” with AI.
This would allow AI models, like ChatGPT to train on Australian books, music and other media without seeking permission or paying the copyright holder.
Holly Rankin, who performs under the moniker Jack River, said the commission’s proposal would be a “fundamental dismantling of our copyright system, legalising the theft of Australian culture at scale”.
“The creative industries contribute $63.7 billion to the Australian economy and employ over half a million people,” she said.
“Some of the largest companies in the world are asking for handouts from the Australian government. They want access to Australian culture and creativity for free.
“The truth is simple: technology companies are able to pay licences, they just don’t want to.”
Vocalist in the band Art vs Science, Dan McNamee said musicians would be robbed “of any agency over how their work is used and exploited” if the copyright exemption was granted for AI.
While Yorta Yorta rapper Adam Briggs questioned why it was a “radical notion that artists should be compensated for their work?”
Liberal Senator Sarah Henderson criticised the commission’s claim it was not “realistic” to stop Australian data being used to train generative AI models overseas.
“You ... are waving the white flag rather than standing up for our creative industries; you’re saying very clearly it’s not realistic that you could stop this. Copyright in this country is worth protecting,” she said.
“Where is the benefit to Australian artists in having their work scraped by AI?”
Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young questioned why the commission hadn’t spoken with artists prior to recommending a copyright exemption for AI.
“You consulted with Mastercard, you consulted with Microsoft, you consulted with Meta, you consulted with OpenAI … you consulted with a lot of other players but you didn’t consult with the creative industries,” she said.
“I’m really interested to know who … told you this was a problem, that there needed to be an exemption, or that copyright was an issue.”
But Productivity Commissioner Julie Abramson defended the interim report, insisting options such as licensing agreements for artists remained under consideration.
“We are consulting fully on this,” she said.
“One of the purposes of our interim report is to seek feedback on these issues.”
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Originally published as ‘Theft of Aussie culture’: Musicians’ warning amid fight for AI models to train off Australian books, music
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