SYDNEY, November 5, 2026 — Australia is weighing changes to its copyright laws that would allow artificial intelligence companies to train models on local data without securing licences. The International Confederation of Music Publishers has described the proposal as a “vast landgrab” that could upend licensing norms worldwide.
The Push to Attract AI Investment
The Attorney-General’s Department is considering reforms to the Copyright Act 1968 aimed at luring AI model training to Australia, including potential mechanisms for compensating rights holders, officials told a parliamentary committee in late October. OpenAI and Anthropic have lobbied the federal government for amendments that would enable them to train “frontier” models locally. The government’s stated motivation is to build domestic data centre capacity and bolster national security by developing sovereign AI capability.
Critics argue the strategy risks turning Australia into a “permissive data-harvesting haven” for global AI firms. ARIA chief executive Annabelle Herd warned in October that allowing unlicensed scraping would devastate the music industry and make Australia a pariah for rights holders globally. John Phelan, director general of the Brussels-based ICMP, which represents 90 per cent of the world’s commercially released music, echoed that assessment, saying companies must play by the same Australian and international laws as those that respect the rules and licence content.
Constitutional Risks and ‘Just Terms’
The debate has shifted to the Constitution. Section 51(xxxi) permits the Commonwealth to acquire property only on “just terms” — a provision familiar to Australians from the film The Castle. Constitutional expert Anne Twomey has warned that granting AI companies permission to scrape copyrighted material could amount to an acquisition of property by the government.
Nationals senator Ross Cadell, a member of the federal parliamentary committee on AI, told Guardian Australia the liability could extend to “every rights holder on Earth” if copyright is acquired for AI training. Shadow Attorney-General Michaelia Cash said the government should not sell out Australian creators in the rush to entice investment. The Attorney-General’s department has acknowledged it is “extremely alive” to the constitutional issue.
National Security Versus Creator Rights
Proponents of the reforms argue that access to vast Australian datasets is critical for national security, particularly to defend against AI-enabled cyber threats from adversary states. However, former intelligence officials have countered that national security AI requires classified intelligence and proprietary corporate data — not literature, visual art or music. Copyright law, they note, is irrelevant to the datasets actually needed for defence and cybersecurity.
Anthropic has proposed an “opt-out” model allowing it to scrape content unless a rights holder deploys digital protections signalling objection. The company’s public prospectus treats potential licensing fees as a business risk it will only pay if forced by courts, and discloses a USD 1.5 billion copyright settlement with authors and publishers in a recent case. The government has promised “the strongest possible protection” for creatives, but the final shape of the legislation remains unresolved.
Sources
- ‘A Vast Landgrab’: ICMP Weighs-In on Big AI’s Australian Copyright Battleground
- Copyright law of Australia
- Experts warn AI copyright changes could breach Australian constitution and spark huge compensation rights case
- AG Department Eyes Copyright Reform To Attract AI Training – Law360 Australia
- OpenAI and Anthropic can protect Australia without raiding its copyright
- Australia argues in court that social media ban is needed to protect children's brains
Photo: Kgbo (CC BY-SA 4.0)
