Music publishers warn Australia against weakening copyright for AI training; Anthropic and OpenAI dispute licensing premise

The International Confederation of Music Publishers (ICMP) warned Australian policymakers against weakening copyright protections for AI training, telling the Guardian that Australian musicians' work has already been used to train AI without compensation. ICMP, which represents Sony, Warner and Universal alongside independent publishers, accused AI companies of trying to "strong-arm" Australia by tying investment to legal changes. ICMP supplied the Guardian with evidence showing Google's Gemini reproducing lyrics by Kylie Minogue, G-Flip and Nick Cave, challenging the AI industry's claim that Australian copyright rules keep Australian content out of model training.

Separately, the parliamentary AI inquiry's Labor chair Jo Briskey and Liberal deputy chair Jonathon Duniam wrote jointly to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese recommending a review to "examine current copyright settings" while preserving creators' control and payment — a recommendation to examine the rules, not an enacted change. Committee members described a stalemate: AI companies are training on copyrighted works in the US without compensation while withholding their most advanced models from Australia unless local copyright laws change.

Anthropic special envoy Jeffrey Bleich told the committee "you can't license the entire internet," arguing training is essentially viewing and studying publicly available information. OpenAI economic policy chief Adam Cohen defended the US fair-use exception and cited OpenAI's deals with News Corp and the Guardian as examples of agreements made despite its position that US law does not require them. All positions are advocacy and testimony, not legal rulings.