The global body for music publishers says AI companies have taken their push to loosen copyright law to dozens of countries, and that Australia appears to be the only one considering it. In an interview published by Guardian Australia on October 19, 2026, John Phelan, managing director of the International Confederation of Music Publishers (ICMP), accused AI firms of asking policymakers to “legitimise larceny” and claimed songs by Australian artists including Kylie Minogue and Nick Cave have already been used to train AI without payment.
What the publishers are claiming
The ICMP represents Sony, Warner and Universal as well as thousands of independent publishers on six continents, the Guardian reported. Phelan said 62 countries had considered changing their laws and none of the others had adopted the AI companies' demands. “There isn't a single country among the other 61 [countries] ... which has introduced a new text and data mining exception for commercial purposes, or reduce the idea of exclusive rights and copyright,” he said. “The world is very much watching what Australia does.”
“They're trying to strong-arm Australian policymakers into ‘if you don't do this, we won't invest,’” Phelan said of the AI companies. According to the Guardian, evidence the ICMP provided showed Google's Gemini could reproduce lyrics by Minogue, G-Flip and Nick Cave. Phelan also pointed to an AI training dataset, reported by the Atlantic in June, that contains more than 12 million songs pulled from YouTube videos, including tracks by Minogue, Cave and Hilltop Hoods. The Guardian said Google was approached for comment.
What the parliament committee recommended
The fight centers on early advice from Australia's Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence. In a letter to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese dated October 12, 2026, committee chair Jo Briskey and deputy chair Jonathon Duniam wrote that current copyright arrangements “are not facilitating licensing deals for Australian culture and content” and that “the status quo sees the work of Australian artists, musicians and media outlets used overseas without adequate control or payment.” The letter noted that frontier AI labs say existing copyright settings are a barrier to training in Australia, and recommended the government “examine current copyright settings” while ensuring creators “retain control over how their works are used, that they are paid.”
Independent Senator David Pocock raised concerns after finding that the prime minister's office had marked up a draft of the letter, ABC News reported. Briskey said she had engaged with the office and that the final report, due in November 2026, was not predetermined; Duniam said there had been “no interference.” ARIA chief executive Annabelle Herd told the inquiry that existing licensing systems could support AI training without rewriting copyright. “They should come to the negotiating table, not to the prime minister's office,” she said.
The AI companies' side
Anthropic's special envoy Jeffrey Bleich told the committee the company was not trying to dictate terms. “You can't license the entire internet,” he said, according to the Guardian, adding that under existing Australian law training “could be determined to be illegal if we weren't able to find a licence with every single person who had rights within Australia.” OpenAI's chief of economic policy, Adam Cohen, said U.S. fair use law “fundamentally protects” new technology. In July 2026, Albanese said it would be “theft” if artists did not keep control over whether their work was used to train AI and what they were paid for it. With the committee's final report due in November, songwriters everywhere have a reason to watch Canberra.