An article featuring Mark Seymour in relation to artificial intelligence in music.<\/p>\n
Author: Liz Hobday and Will Nicholas, AAP Entertainment.<\/p>\n
Date: 1 July 2026.<\/p>\n
Original URL: https:\/\/www.kyfreepress.com.au\/aap-entertainment\/artists-sing-out-as-australian-songbook-slurped-by-ai\/<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Article Text<\/p>\n
Art is a ‘victim of crime’ but won’t take AI to court<\/p>\n
Australian authors and artists say big tech is scraping their work and stripping their livelihoods. -AAP Image
\nAustralian artists whose work is being scraped by AI aren’t planning on taking big tech to court despite the existential threat they say it poses to their livelihoods.<\/p>\n
“I’m a writer, but I’m standing here before you today, really, as a victim of crime,” author Anna Funder told reporters at Parliament House in Canberra on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Funder is one of countless Australian artists whose work is training artificial intelligence models without permission, a practice known as scraping, or slurping.<\/p>\n
“I feel like I’ve been building, slowly and painstakingly with a massive mortgage, a block of flats,” she said, flanked by a gaggle of musicians, authors and industry figures in the nation’s capital.<\/p>\n
“Each book is a flat, and I rent it out, and the money that I get is royalties. These big tech bros have moved into my flats, kicked me out, and are charging rent for my work.”<\/p>\n
Big tech should ask artists’ permission to scrape their work and pay them royalties under copyright law.<\/p>\n
AI giants were denied an exemption to those laws in October, but artists are still seeing their work slurped.<\/p>\n
“I’ve written 43 books, 67 books have been scraped without permission, that includes translations,” children’s author Andy Griffiths said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
“They are going for everything.”<\/p>\n
But taking big tech to court was “not the way to go”, Funder said.<\/p>\n
She cited a landmark $US1.5 billion settlement between artists and AI juggernaut Anthropic in September, which awarded Funder $US3000 as compensation for a litany of scraped works.<\/p>\n
“(Anthropic) are not the good guys,” she said.<\/p>\n
Government should stand back from deal-making between tech companies and creative industries, but should also be proactive in fending off Silicon Valley’s requests for copyright carve-outs, according to the artists.<\/p>\n
“We shouldn’t have to spend creators’ monies … to protect their rights here,” music licensing chief executive Dean Ormston told reporters.<\/p>\n
“Canberra Airport’s never been so busy, (big tech lobbyists) flying out from the US,” he said.<\/p>\n
AI models are usually trained in the US, complicating any court battle Australian artists might wish to mount.<\/p>\n
“You actually have to bring infringement cases in the United States, and that is exactly what is happening,” Australian recording industry chief executive Annabelle Herd told reporters.<\/p>\n
The issue needed to be settled at the negotiating table, rather than a courtroom, the artists said, adding they were open for business and not outright opposed to AI.<\/p>\n
Worldwide, almost 300 commercial AI licensing deals have been inked with content companies such as Conde Nast and Warner Music.<\/p>\n
About 270 court cases are under way against AI firms in various jurisdictions, but there are no copyright infringement cases against AI companies recorded in Australian courts.<\/p>\n
Debate on the issue reignited in June after independent senator David Pocock aired claims in parliament that Labor is considering a fresh set of carve-outs for big tech companies.<\/p>\n
The government labelled the claims as reckless speculation.<\/p>\n
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Comments<\/p>\n
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An article featuring Mark Seymour in relation to artificial intelligence in music. Author: Liz Hobday and Will Nicholas, AAP Entertainment. Date: 1 July 2026. Original URL: https:\/\/www.kyfreepress.com.au\/aap-entertainment\/artists-sing-out-as-australian-songbook-slurped-by-ai\/ Article Text Art is a ‘victim of crime’ but won’t take AI to court Australian authors and artists say big tech is scraping their work and stripping more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":9456,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-13474","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P5xhjD-3vk","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/humanfrailty.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/13474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/humanfrailty.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/humanfrailty.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humanfrailty.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humanfrailty.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13474"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/humanfrailty.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/13474\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13475,"href":"https:\/\/humanfrailty.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/13474\/revisions\/13475"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humanfrailty.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/humanfrailty.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}