\u201cWe could be liable for \u2018just terms\u2019 compensation for acquiring that property for every rights holder on Earth,\u201d Ross Cadell, a Nationals senator, told Guardian Australia.<\/p>\n
Michaelia Cash, the shadow attorney general, said the government should not \u201csell out Australian creators and rights holders in the rush to entice AI investment\u201d.<\/p>\n
Labor is mulling copyright changes in a suite of reforms around AI, including datacentres, online safety, workforce, energy and the economy. While the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has promised \u201cthe strongest possible protection\u201d<\/a>, warning it would be \u201ctheft\u201d if creatives weren\u2019t paid for their work, creative industries are alarmed that AI companies have requested a weakening of copyright law to train on Australian material.<\/p>\n Some AI companies have rejected making licensing agreements under existing copyright law, saying it was too difficult. Anthropic suggested an \u201copt-out\u201d model<\/a> which would allow it to scrape content unless a rightholder deployed digital protections signaling an objection.<\/p>\n A fresh concern being aired by sceptics and creatives is that any weakening of copyright to benefit AI could represent a breach of section 51 of the constitution, which allows the commonwealth to make laws about \u201cthe acquisition of property on just terms\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIf they go ahead with an opt-out model, it does raise a real question of whether the government is acquiring the intellectual property rights of others,\u201d said Cadell, a member of the federal parliamentary committee on AI<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cHow we support property rights is core to this.\u201d<\/p>\n A spokesperson for the attorney general, Michelle Rowland, said the government was \u201ccommitted to supporting\u201d creatives and pledged that \u201cany future copyright changes deliver meaningful control and fair compensation\u201d.<\/p>\n Anne Twomey, professor emerita of law at the University of Sydney, said the issue was exceedingly complex and noted no legislative proposal had been aired. She said numerous cases had come before the high court relating to copyright and acquisition of property, including about video games, cigarette plain packaging and cassette tapes, with varying outcomes.<\/p>\n Twomey expected the federal government would be hyperaware of such concerns, but said granting a new right to AI companies to use copyrighted material and diminishing the rights of copyright holders could \u201cpotentially\u201d trigger constitutional issues.<\/p>\n \u201cThe high court has recognised a number of exceptions to section 51 \u2026 One would want to be quite confident before enacting the legislation about whether or not section 51 would apply,\u201d Twomey told Guardian Australia.<\/p>\n She said any change allowing Australia to host AI companies training on international data could potentially create grounds for global rights holders to take legal action here.<\/p>\n Cadell told Guardian Australia he worried about such a development opening the federal government to liability for \u201cthe biggest compensation rights case in history\u201d.<\/p>\n
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