Labor's AI copyright compromise: default access for datacentres
The Albanese government is considering giving AI companies default access to Australian creatives' work as part of a compromise with American tech giants to secure datacentre investment.
Independent Senator David Pocock aired the claim in the Senate, saying Labor's compromise would throw protections for creatives and copyright holders "under the bus" in pursuit of datacentre funding. The Guardian
Pocock tabled a document titled "AI on Australian Terms" in the Senate on Tuesday, described as screenshots of the government's consultation proposals on AI and copyright. That is the trade on the table. It did not land quietly.
What the papers propose
The consultation document states that voluntary deals between AI companies and the vast number of small individual online creators "is not realistic/possible". The logic is blunt. There are too many rights holders, too many small posts and images and tracks, for one-by-one licensing to work.
Three broad options flow from that premise.
One proposal would require rights holders to "digitally protect" their material to prevent AI models being trained on it. In practice, that puts the onus on the creator. Protect it, or it is available. Leave it unprotected online, and it can be mined.
One option would give AI companies the right to access and train on any unprotected online material as long as they made deals with enough businesses. The detail of what counts as enough is not settled in the material tabled. The principle is settled. Strike deals with larger players, gain access to the long tail.
Another option would allow AI companies to make deals with rightsholder organisations that grant access even for creators who are not members, extending a licence for music or text to many small creators. For anyone who works the copyright beat, that model will be familiar. It is extended collective licensing in all but name, applied to model training.
Companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic would be allowed to train models on online content without paying creators under proposals reported by ABC News. ABC News
What the government says
Senior personnel from OpenAI met with Labor ministers and warned Australia's copyright laws were preventing the company training models locally. Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles confirmed the federal government spoke with tech companies in San Francisco in the past fortnight about copyright and AI collaboration.
Attorney-General Michelle Rowland is running the government's ongoing consultation with affected organisations on AI and copyright. Industry Minister Tim Ayres said on Monday the government's forthcoming AI rules would "in no way" involve a reduction in copyright protection.
Read those two positions together. Ministers are talking deal-making in California while insisting at home that protection will not be wound back. Canberra has heard this tune before. Consultation is doing a lot of work in that sentence.
OpenAI said Australia would become the first country to host AI model training if copyright could be resolved. SMH Data Centres Australia stated in a NSW Government filing that Australian copyright law is a barrier to training AI models on Australian content in Australia.
A proposal to allow AI companies to mine content has been put to Australian cabinet, with the July proposal linking permission to mine content to investment and a $350m fund to compensate artists. That background matters for what is now being floated as an opt-out and bulk-licensing compromise.
Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young described suggestions of a copyright compromise for AI as "abhorrent".
Why the politics is volatile
The broader context here is one press-gallery regulars will recognise. Governments like to promise both investment and protection. Creators hear the second promise. Tech companies hear the first.
In my view, the faultline is who bears the friction. An opt-out built around an obligation to "digitally protect" shifts cost and technical burden to individual writers, artists, photographers and musicians. A test based on deals with enough businesses shifts leverage to firms large enough to bargain. An extended licence shifts power to collecting bodies, and raises the hard questions about rates, distribution and consent for non-members.
Labor says no reduction in protection. The papers tabled speak of default access unless protected. Those two statements can only both be true if ministers define protection as the existence of an opt-out, however difficult to use, plus bulk deals done elsewhere. Creatives will test that definition hard, and the crossbench already is.
For expert readers, watch three points. First, what counts as digitally protected, and who sets the standard. Second, what threshold of commercial deals triggers broader access, and who audits it. Third, whether any extended licence includes enforceable payment, transparency over training sets, and a workable exit for individuals. Without those specifics, this remains a framework for a deal, not a safeguard.
Pocock has forced the documents into the open. Rowland now owns the consultation. The government wants the sheds, the servers and the jobs. The price, on the evidence tabled this week, is Australia's copyright default. That is the fight.
