The International Confederation of Music Publishers (ICMP) has accused AI companies of trying to “strong-arm” Australia’s government into loosening the country’s copyright rules on AI training.
The music publishing trade body also claims that AI models have already been trained on songs by Australian artists including Kylie Minogue and Nick Cave, without payment to rightsholders.
That’s according to Guardian Australia, which reported the claims on Monday (October 19).
ICMP warned that, of the dozens of countries AI firms have lobbied for weaker copyright protections, Australia appears to be the only one considering the idea.
ICMP Director General John Phelan said AI companies were asking policymakers to “legitimize larceny.” “They’re trying to strong-arm Australian policymakers into ‘if you don’t do this, we won’t invest,'” he told the Guardian.
ICMP‘s membership spans Sony Music Publishing, Universal Music Publishing Group, and Warner Chappell Music, as well as independent music publishers and national trade associations across six continents.
ICMP has been following attempts by AI firms in multiple countries to rewrite copyright rules so that their models can be trained on protected works.
According to Phelan, 62 countries, Australia among them, have considered changes to their laws, but none of the others has signed up to the AI industry’s demands.
“There isn’t a single country among the other 61 … which has introduced a new text and data mining exception for commercial purposes, or [reduced] the idea of exclusive rights and copyright,” said Phelan. “The world is very much watching what Australia does.
“It’s fair to say the global music industry, as well as all creative industries worldwide we work with, are appalled by the idea of a statutory scheme or a government deal which would interfere with how Australian industries work and contract around the world.”
John Phelan, ICMP
“It’s fair to say the global music industry, as well as all creative industries worldwide we work with, are appalled by the idea of a statutory scheme or a government deal which would interfere with how Australian industries work and contract around the world.”
Some jurisdictions already had commercial text and data mining exceptions before the current lobbying push. Under a 2019 directive, EU law permits such mining unless rightsholders opt out, while Japan and Singapore adopted broader exceptions in 2018 and 2021, respectively.
AI companies have argued that Australia‘s copyright rules mean their models are not trained on Australian content, the outlet reported.
But ICMP handed the Guardian evidence, on an exclusive basis, showing that Google‘s Gemini could produce the lyrics to songs by Australian artists, among them Kylie Minogue, G Flip, and Nick Cave.
Google was approached for comment by the Guardian.
Phelan also pointed to an AI training dataset, LAION-DISCO-12M, that The Atlantic reported on in June.
According to the Guardian, that dataset links to more than 12 million songs on YouTube, including tracks by Minogue, Cave, and Hilltop Hoods. The Atlantic has cautioned that AI companies may leave some works out when training their models, so a song’s inclusion in a dataset is not definitive proof that it was used.
Australian collecting society APRA AMCOS cited The Atlantic‘s investigation in a statement on June 19.
The statement named Minogue, Cave, Midnight Oil, Sia, and Hilltop Hoods among the Australian and New Zealand artists whose works it said appeared in the datasets The Atlantic had uncovered.
At the time, APRA AMCOS accused tech companies of lobbying “to trade investment for immunity.”
Phelan told the Guardian that he believed the cost of AI companies’ investments, the pressure to generate a return, and copyright litigation in the US had caused panic within the sector.
“They’re seeing the legislative side as being the way to try to [find] a place to do business without licenses, which will secure their future business model,” said Phelan.
Phelan made similar comments to the Australian Financial Review on October 16, in response to a leaked government consultation document that sets out two options for Australia, both built on an opt-out system.
Under the first, AI firms could train on online material that hadn’t been opted out as long as they paid into a central body or licensed it through deals with Australian collecting societies. Under the second, they would earn that right by striking deals with a minimum number of rightsholders for a minimum period, with nothing paid to anyone outside those deals, according to the ABC, which first reported on the document in September.
Phelan told the AFR that Australia was one of a series of countries to have come into the “crosshairs” of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei.
The interventions come as members of Australia’s Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence revisit the copyright question.
On October 12, the committee’s Labor chair, Jo Briskey, and its deputy chair, Liberal senator Jonathon Duniam, wrote jointly to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. They recommended that the government “examine current copyright settings,” with creators keeping control of their work and getting paid.
Independent senator David Pocock, who sits on the committee, has questioned whether its position on copyright was predetermined by the prime minister.
The Guardian reported on October 13 that notes on the letter showed a senior adviser in Albanese‘s office had edited the text shortly before it was sent.
Briskey has rejected Pocock‘s claim.
ARIA and PPCA CEO Annabelle Herd told the same committee on October 6 that OpenAI and Anthropic were “asking Government for a free ride” on copyright.
Jeff Bleich, Anthropic‘s international special envoy and a former US ambassador to Australia, also gave evidence that day. He told the committee that the company was not trying to dictate terms.
Bleich said Anthropic had given the government information on training, and on what it would mean “with respect to our capacity to operate here.”
“You can’t license the entire internet,” said Bleich. “Billions and billions of information exists there which is available to be viewed and studied, and that’s essentially what training is.
“Under existing Australian law, it’s our understanding that that could be determined to be illegal if we weren’t able to find a license with every single person who had rights within Australia.”
OpenAI‘s head of economic policy, Adam Cohen, said the fair use doctrine in US law “fundamentally protects” the development of new technology.
Cohen cited OpenAI’s agreements with News Corp and the Guardian as examples of content deals the company has struck.
Australia‘s government ruled out a text and data mining exception to copyright law for AI developers in October 2025.
On July 15 this year, Albanese addressed the issue in a speech on AI at the University of Sydney, saying: “No company should use Australian books, music, art or news to build or train AI without the artist’s control.”
“That includes the artist’s control of the price and value of their work. Anything less, is theft,” said Albanese.
ICMP welcomed the speech in a statement published on July 16.
The statement said Albanese‘s stance came despite lobbying by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Anthropic‘s Amodei, Google, and others. Phelan added that “the implications are global.”
The Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence is due to deliver its report by November 30.Music Business Worldwide
