63 media groups warn Australian lawmakers against AI-training opt-out copyright change

What happened

On Oct 20, 2026, a coalition of 63 international media organizations led by the News/Media Alliance delivered a letter to senior Australian politicians asking them to reject proposed changes to Australia's copyright laws that would allow AI companies to use copyrighted material in training their models. Signatories include the Authors Guild, Association of American Publishers, News Media Europe, WAN-IFRA, NMPA, RIAA, and groups from Argentina, Brazil, Spain, and Italy.

The proposal opposed

The coalition describes the proposal as a 'statutory pool' that would let AI companies train on copyrighted material by default, requiring rights holders to opt out to keep their work protected -- reversing Australia's current permission-first rule. The letter warns such a regime would upend decades of international precedent, devalue works, and undermine creators' ability to negotiate fair compensation, and would violate treaty obligations (Berne Convention, TRIPS, WIPO Copyright Treaty).

Why it matters

An opt-out licensing default in Australia would flip the baseline from permission-first to AI-first; the letter explicitly frames Australia as a template other governments weighing similar rules could point to.

Note: this item rests on the News/Media Alliance press release and independent reprints by Editor & Publisher and America's Newspapers; the letter's signatory list and quotes are attributed to the Alliance release.