The ASA warmly welcomes the Prime Minister’s strong commitment to Australian creators, made today in a speech about shaping artificial intelligence in Australia’s interests.

ASA CEO, Lucy Hayward, said, “We applaud the government for demonstrating strong leadership and standing firm on their support for arts and culture in Australia. The government’s vision on AI and copyright today, will protect the opportunities for future generations of authors and illustrators. The Prime Minister has put it plainly – authors’ and illustrators’ work is their property. AI companies must seek permission and offer payment for any use of that work. Anything less is theft.

“The government has been consistent on copyright and the expectation has been made clear: AI developers must respect creators’ rights. And yet, instead of commencing negotiations with creators and rightsholders, multinational AI companies have continued to lobby in Canberra for changes to our law, using data centre investment as leverage. The reluctance of AI companies to work with the creative industries on licensing solutions is slowing us down and hampering the government’s efforts to plan for our future. The Prime Minister has been unambiguous, and now it’s time for these companies to come to the licensing table.”

ASA Chair, Jen Mills, said, “It’s fantastic to have confirmation that the government will stand by Australian creators. This has been a very stressful time for authors, with so much pressure being applied by wealthy Big Tech lobbyists. I commend the government for sticking to its principles and seeing the value of Australian authors and Australian stories. Our rights as creators must be defended.

“Now big tech needs to come to the table and accept the facts. The next step is to make sure that authors are fairly compensated for the past theft of our work and for its future use, and that our rights are respected in practice.”

The ASA also welcomes the announcement of a new national framework to coordinate Australia’s response to artificial intelligence through an Office of AI.

Hayward said, “The Office of AI represents a real opportunity to ensure that use of Australian copyright work for AI development is built upon consent, credit, and remuneration. The Prime Minister has flagged our need to set clear ground rules for AI companies wishing to operate in this market. Those rules should include mandated transparency about the Australian copyright works that have been used to train large language models. AI companies must also be made to demonstrate that the copyright work they’ve used to train their models has been appropriately licensed.

“We are thrilled about this important acknowledgement from government that Australian stories are the bedrock of our culture, and copyright enables those stories to continue being told. 

“Anthropic and other AI companies are not after ‘clarity’ about copyright, they’re after charity. We welcome the opportunity presented through the Office of AI to determine the standards we impose upon Big Tech in this jurisdiction, for the benefit of Australians.”

The ASA looks forward to working with the newly established Office of AI to ensure authors’ and illustrators’ rights and interests are protected.