ARIA CEO Annabelle Herd has issued a warning to the Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence that new proposals designed to attract AI companies to train their models in Australia could put the work of local creatives at risk, and ultimately devastate the local industry.
In recent weeks, reports have emerged regarding how senior representatives from ChatGPT creators OpenAI have reportedly met with Labor ministers, warning them that Australia's current copyright laws meant that the organisation was unable to train their models locally, and thus unable to invest billions of dollars in the local economy.
A leaked Government copyright proposal noted that a new copyright reform plan had been put forward, effectively making it necessary for creatives to opt out of their inclusion in AI training by default.
As many Australians – particularly those in the creative industries – find themselves growing tired of AI, the Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence is currently underway in Sydney, as it seeks to look at just what opportunities and risks AI presents in Australia.
Representing Australian recording artists, international artists, and local and international record labels and distributors, Herd warned the Committee that the practice of changing copyright laws in Australia to appease artificial intelligence companies could serve as something of a Trojan horse for large companies to use local shores as a "global safe haven for industrial-scale copyright exploitation".
Currently, the principle of national treatment means that Australia protects work from overseas under the same laws it treats local works. Therefore, any compensation scheme put forward would also need to recognise the rights of overseas rights holders and not solely operate as a fund exclusively used for Australian artists.
"OpenAI and Anthropic want the Australian Government to sign up to a deal to train their frontier AI agents here on the proviso that they don’t have to abide by our copyright laws," Herd explained.
"Their reason? The world’s richest and most advanced companies say it would be too costly and complex to work with rights holders."
She continued:
This concept that the status quo isn’t working is being used as an argument by AI companies to change our copyright law. You don’t address a systemic problem of mass piracy by changing the law to legalise that piracy on an ongoing basis.
In Australia, we have a very clear system where, if you can’t rely on a fair dealing exception, you can’t copy. The law is very certain. It is very simple for these companies to come to us and say, ‘We’d like to license your content.’ They should come to the negotiating table, not to the Prime Minister’s office.
ARIA and PPCA are not against these companies doing their frontier training in Australia. We understand why that is beneficial, but it should happen on our terms, not theirs. There is nothing less sovereign than rewriting our laws to suit foreign company commercial interests.
Herd warned the committee that if copyright changes take place in the ways that Big AI are proposing, then it would "devastate the music industry and make Australia a pariah for rights holders globally".
“To me, this seems to be a deliberate strategy by the AI companies," she explained. "They’re open in saying they won’t license here because it could impact their US lawsuits. But the converse is also true.
"If we go down a path and declare that there’s no licensing market – Australia deciding to upend the global licensing market and say there isn’t one – then that will assist them in their US lawsuits and I’m not sure why that’s in Australia’s interests.
"The global music industry already has efficient licensing systems capable of licensing 90 per cent of the world’s sound recordings through four global deals: one with each major label and one with Merlin, representing independent labels," she concluded.
"There is clearly no market failure, just two foreign companies, each valued at over U$1 trillion, asking Government for a free ride."
The Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence is expected to report on their findings in late November.
