Leaked Australian proposal would allow AI training opt-out, with no compensation under one option

What happened: A leaked Australian attorney-general's department document ('AI on Australian terms'), tabled by Senator David Pocock, shows the federal government is considering a text-and-data-mining copyright reform option in which AI companies could scrape Australian creators' works under an opt-out system, with one option offering creators no compensation at all. Under that option, AI firms would scrape freely if they strike deals with rights holders for a minimum period; creators could opt out but would forgo any earnings. A second option promises compensation for all scraped work. The proposal is aimed at attracting frontier AI companies — including OpenAI, which threatened to drop planned Australian AI training centres and renewable-energy investment unless copyright was relaxed.

Why it matters to creators: This would reverse the Albanese government's prior pledge of no uncompensated TDM exception and flip the burden of protection onto creators: by the time an author opts out, their work is already inside a model that cannot unlearn it. It affects books, music, art and news — the full breadth of creative work.

Not yet known: The document is a consultation paper, not policy; Attorney-General Michelle Rowland says no decision has been made and Labor ministers have downplayed the proposal.