“There are no plans to weaken copyright protections when it comes to AI” – Michelle Rowland
The Attorney General, Michelle Rowland solidified the Government’s stance on the current Australian copyright regime with regard to AI training for Large Language Models (LLM). Despite previous suggestions from the Productivity Commission, the Government will not amend the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth) to include a text and data mining exception (TDM exception).
The question remains of whether the current (voluntary) licensing framework will remain or whether this will pave the way to establishing a new mandatory licensing framework in Australia. Is a copyright collecting society the solution, or will we see an introduction of something similar to the media bargaining code?
These are some of the questions we hope the Government’s Copyright and AI Reference Group will discuss when they meet later today.
Background
On 5 August 2025, the Productivity Commission released the third of five interim reports: ‘Harnessing data and digital technology’ (the Interim Report).[1] The Interim Report suggested that the utility and benefit of AI could improve productivity by approximately 4.3% and contribute $116 billion to GDP over the next decade.[2]
Notably, the Interim Report’s seminal proposal was an expansion of the existing ‘fair dealing’ regime to include a TDM exception.[3] This proposal aimed to align Australia with the TDM exceptions already in place in the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, Japan and Singapore. The TDM exception would have enabled the use of copyright material without permission from the copyright owner, so long as it was used for one of several specified purposes and considered fair. This TDM exception would not be limited to only AI model training, but “all forms of analytical techniques that use machine-read material to identify patterns, trends and other useful information”.[4] While the Productivity Commission acknowledged the Australian Government’s historical inclination to not introduce a fair use regime for copyrighted material, the Productivity Commission did seek to clarify that the proposed TDM exception would not be a ‘blank cheque’ for all copyrighted materials to be used as inputs into all LLM and AI models.[5]
Responses
As expected, despite the emphasis by the Productivity Commission on the requirement being limited to ‘fair’ use, there has been great push back from the creative sector. Copyright owners and creators have raised concerns about the TDM exception from the beginning with the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA), the Australasian Mechanical Copyright Owners Society (AMCOS) and the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Music Office (NATSIMO) all releasing statements.
APRA Chair, Jenny Morris MNZM OAM added “they’re laying the groundwork to legitimise what they themselves acknowledge is already widespread theft. We’ve witnessed the wholesale ingestion of Australian works by AI companies in the US, where over 30 court cases are currently underway challenging this practice.”[1]
While technology companies have highlighted the billions of dollars of foreign investment that could be unlocked through access to Australian materials – as stated by Annabelle Herd, CEO of the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) and Phonographic Performance Company of Australia (PPCA) “consent, control, and compensation remain at the heart of copyright in the age of artificial intelligent.”[2]
Next steps
Now that the Government has ruled out such an amendment to the Copyright Act, the question remains of whether a new mandatory licensing framework should be established for AI, or whether a voluntary licensing framework will remain.
Today, the Government’s Copyright and AI Reference Group (CAIRG) will convene to discuss and clarify how the tech industry and the creative sector can work together to encourage innovation and ensure creators are properly compensated. There are three main priorities which CAIRG will seek to address. These include:
- Encouraging fair, legal avenues for using copyright material in AI with regard to licensing frameworks;
- Improving certainty around how copyright law applies to material generated through the use of AI; and
- Providing less costly enforcement avenues to help intellectual property owners more easily enforce their existing rights through the possible establishment of a new small claims forum.
While Australian copyright law is limited to acts of copying within Australia’s borders, the Government’s decision to exclude a TDM exception has been positively received by the intellectual property innovators and sector at large.
[1] Productivity Commission, Harnessing Data and Digital Technology, Interim Report (August 2025) https://assets.pc.gov.au/2025-09/data-digital-interim.pdf.
[2] Ibid 100.
[3] Ibid 26.
[4] Ibid 27.
[5] Ibid 28.
[6] “APRA AMCOS and NATSIMO reject Productivity Commission’s proposal”, APRA AMCOS (web page, 27 October 2025), https://www.apraamcos.com.au/about-us/news-and-events/productivity-commission-response
[7] See Australian Recording Industry Association, ARIA and PPCA welcome Albanese Government’s commitment to creators in landmark AI copyright decision (Web Page, 27 October 2025) https://www.aria.com.au/industry/news/aria-and-ppca-welcome-albanese-governments-commitment-to-creators-in-landmark-ai-copyright-decision.
