Grayndler creatives object to Labor's AI copyright plan

The federal Labor government is considering allowing AI companies to access Australian creatives' works by default to train AI models. Some of the artists most likely to be affected live in Anthony Albanese's own electorate.

Albanese has held the inner west Sydney seat of Grayndler for three decades. More than 3,000 cultural and creative businesses operate there, and 10% of workers in the electorate are employed in cultural and creative fields, compared with 4.2% nationally.

Pete Strong, a screenprinter and Greens councillor for Bayside whose business is based in Grayndler, said he is completely against the government's AI scraping proposal. Scraping is the automated copying of material from the internet. Lu Campbell-Smith, an inner west designer and artist, described having to opt out of AI scraping as outrageous.

Albanese has promised the strongest possible protection for creatives. He has said it would be theft if creatives were not paid for work used by AI. In July, he said he wanted to do AI "the Australian way" in a speech outlining announcements on datacentres and copyright. He has also established an Office of AI.

The question is how AI companies may use existing material. Anthropic has suggested an opt-out model, which would allow content to be scraped unless a rights holder objected. Some AI companies have said making licensing agreements under existing copyright law would be too difficult. OpenAI has warned that Australia's copyright laws were preventing the company from training models locally.

Labor's AI copyright proposals were leaked in September 2026, after senior OpenAI personnel met Labor ministers. The government's draft AI laws are expected by the end of 2026, with parliamentary consideration due in 2027. The copyright changes are part of a wider package of AI reforms covering datacentres, energy and the economy.

Experts have warned that altering copyright law to allow AI companies to scrape music, books and journalism could breach the Australian Constitution and spark a major compensation case, according to The Guardian.

The issue has also reached the creative sector's own dealings with AI. Sydney clothing label Lonely Kids Club had thousands of T-shirt designs stolen and listed on Temu, the online shopping platform, according to The Guardian.

The Productivity Commission runs a project called Harnessing Data and Digital Technology. A submission to that process opposes introducing a "fair dealing" exception for text and data mining, the automated analysis of large volumes of material, into Australian copyright law. Another position recorded in the process states that such an exception is not necessary to facilitate AI development in Australia.