Urgent calls from creatives for AI protection under copyright

Following the federal government’s refusal to allow tech companies to use creative works for AI training without permission or payment, unions are renewing calls for greater copyright protection as the technological landscape evolves.

Announced yesterday (5 May), the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) launched a bid for equitable remuneration (ER) – the inalienable right for creators to be paid whenever their work is publicised – to be introduced in Australia and extended to digital and AI creations.

While there are similar systems in place, such as equal remuneration orders, these remain strictly for employment use and are often handled by the Fair Work Commission.

As such, a divide is emerging between creatives and tech, commercial, and economic bodies, which argue that inalienable payment rights would break existing business models or drive innovation elsewhere.

ER has seen success overseas by protecting jobs and bolstering incomes and, according to the MEAA, has the potential to include licensing, watermarking, and tracking if harnessed with other provisions.

In a statement, the MEAA urged the federal government to reform copyright law to include payment rights and protections as AI encroaches more on livelihoods. Chief executive Erin Madeley highlighted the importance of ER to protect creators and ensure major corporations are not the only parties to benefit from AI.

“Massive datasets of music, films, journalism, books and voices are being scraped to train commercial AI systems, often without consent, credit or payment to the workers who made them,” she said.

“This is driving job losses, undercutting incomes and hollowing out Australia’s creative and media industries.”

Madeley highlighted how creators are often locked into one-off fees in buy-out contracts, and in the process, lose all rights and potential future earnings, adding: “Equitable remuneration is a way to close loopholes that allow income to be contracted away, ensuring payment flows to the people that made the work.”

“If governments don’t act now, we risk losing the creative workforce that supports our culture and democracy.

“It’s time for tech companies to pay up, and introducing ER into copyright laws, alongside effective licensing, watermarking, and tracking, will ensure that happens.”

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