Unlicensed AI training would cost Australian and New Zealand music creators more than $500 million over four years, according to APRA AMCOS research, a figure the industry put behind Anthony Albanese's declaration on Wednesday that using creative work without consent and payment is theft.
The Prime Minister's speech at the University of Sydney, the same one that established a new Office of AI, carried a direct commitment to the people who make books, music, art and news. "No company should use Australian books, music, art or news to build or train AI without the artist's control," he said, including control of the price and value of their work. "Anything less, is theft."
Attorney-General Michelle Rowland has ruled out a text-and-data-mining exception, the legal carve-out that would have allowed AI companies to train on Australian works for free. That question had been the industry's biggest fear in the government's ongoing copyright and AI review.
For the music bodies, the target is specific. APRA AMCOS chief executive Dean Ormston pointed at Anthropic, which has proposed a $15 billion Australian data centre build and paid US$1.5 billion last year to settle a copyright case over pirated books. "Australian artists and copyright owners should not be expected to subsidise Anthropic's business model," he said.
ARIA chief executive Annabelle Herd read the speech as a settled position. "The Prime Minister could not have been clearer: Australian writers and musicians keep ownership and control of their work," she said. "Control of price, value and terms of use are what underpin a commercial licensing market."
Australian Writers' Guild chief executive Claire Pullen aimed at the lobbying that preceded the speech. "Big tech has invested heavily in trying to say our copyright laws are a problem to be solved, rather than what they are, an opportunity," she said.
The AI companies answered carefully. OpenAI said it was "committed to engaging constructively throughout this process with the government, creators and industry". Anthropic's general counsel Jeff Bleich, a former US ambassador to Australia, said AI would "reshape democracies, economies and national security". The companies also face new physical rules: large AI data centres are to generate as much power as they consume, pay their own grid connection costs and meet water efficiency requirements.
What creators do not yet have is an enforcement mechanism. The speech contained no new copyright bill; the consent-and-payment commitment rides on the Attorney-General's review, separate from the AI standards legislation due in Parliament in early 2027. SmartCompany described the copyright content of the speech as a single, carefully worded line.
The framework goes to National Cabinet next month. Until the review reports, the theft line is a promise, and the industry that welcomed it on Wednesday will be measuring the legislation against it.
