Australian broadcasters ABC and SBS push back on Anthropic's robots.txt opt-out proposal, demand AI firms join news bargaining incentive

What happened: In newly published submissions to Australia's Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence (reported 1 Oct 2026), public broadcasters ABC and SBS responded to Anthropic's proposal that Australia grant 'narrow conditional approval' for AI training on copyrighted works under a robots.txt-based opt-out model. SBS said robots.txt mechanisms are 'routinely ignored or bypassed' and that the onus should be on AI companies, not rightsholders, to avoid wrongdoing. ABC warned of 'cannibalisation' of the Australian news industry and demanded AI firms be held to the same copyright, defamation and privacy rules as media outlets. Both broadcasters asked for AI companies to be brought under Australia's news bargaining incentive, which would force commercial deals with large media outlets to support journalism. The committee holds Sydney hearings next week with executives from Anthropic and OpenAI and is due to report in November.

Why it matters to creators: this is the opt-out vs opt-in debate in its sharpest national form - Anthropic's concrete opt-out proposal versus creators' demand that AI labs negotiate licences. Bringing AI firms under the bargaining incentive would create a commercial licensing channel for news content; rejection of robots.txt-based opt-out would shift compliance costs onto AI companies.

Not yet known: whether the committee or the government will adopt the broadcasters' bargaining-incentive demand; the outcome of the Sydney hearings and the November report. No liability claims are asserted here.