Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese promised local creatives the “strongest possible protection” against AI models, warning that it would be “theft” if writers, artists and musicians weren’t able to maintain control of or receive payment for the use of their work.
“Let me make this crystal clear: not everything produced in Australia is up for grabs. Not at all,” Albanese said during a speech at the University of Sydney on Wednesday. “Australian writers, musicians, artists and journalists must retain ownership and control of their work. Our laws will spell that out, plain as day. An artist’s creative endeavor is their work and their property.”
Albanese also established an office of AI and pushed back on the idea that large companies like OpenAI and Anthropic would be given free access to use Australians’ data to train their artificial intelligence models.
“No company should use Australian books, music, art or news to build or train AI without the artist’s control. That includes the artist’s control of the price and value of their work,” he said. “Anything less is theft.”
“Nowhere do artists or rights holders have sufficient control of their work, when it comes to AI training,” Albanese continued. “That is why the best way to secure the strongest copyright protections for Australian artists is for Australia to be active and involved.To build the best possible solution for ourselves. And to preserve the creativity that is fundamental to who we are to our national identity and the journalism that is essential to our democratic society.”
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