The Media Entertainment & Arts Alliance welcomes the announcement by the Federal Government that Australian law will not be watered down to permit free access to Australian creative works.
MEAA Chief Executive Erin Madeley said this was a major win in the campaign to stop AI theft and force big tech to pay up for the theft of creative work happening every day in Australia.
"The decision backs in the value of our music, screen productions, journalism, books and scripts, and of Australian culture at large, as well as the workers who produce it and serve Australian audiences," Ms Madeley said.
"While it is an essential first step in dealing with the risks posed by generative AI, which takes us closer to a socially responsible regulatory framework, there is more to do.
"MEAA will continue the campaign to ensure Australian workers receive full compensation for the use of their work, and crucially, to deal with AI job losses and work displacement."
MEAA also welcomes the Federal Government's commitment to greater transparency and licensing arrangements, noting the need for any regime to guarantee protection for workers.
"The right response to generative AI is to lead with the principle of guaranteed payment for creative and media workers, and we will work with government and industry to ensuring this occurs on behalf of our members."
The federal government has a record of defending Australian interests in the face of big tech – moderating the effects of social media via its age-limit regime, protecting public interest journalism via the news media bargaining code, and banning the use of deepfakes.
The impact of AI goes beyond copyright and is being felt by workers right now. A survey of more than 700 media and creative workers showed widespread concern among creative and media professionals and a very high proportion who had already experienced AI theft.
"With AI threatening to devalue and degrade Australian arts, media, and culture, we call on the government to again act bravely and build on this decision with dedicated legislation to ensure Australian creative and media workers can continue to tell our stories.
"Millions of images, songs, articles, and films have been scraped without consent or compensation to train AI - a practice threatening wages and conditions in already precarious industries.
"AI continues to pose an unprecedented economic and cultural risk to media and creative workers, requiring urgent legislative intervention and requiring big tech to pay for the impact they are having now on creative and media workers everywhere.
"AI systems also risk misappropriating Indigenous cultural knowledge, art, stories, music, and performance traditions, which is why MEAA has called for legal recognition of Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property (ICIP).
"Creators must retain control over how their work is used, with legally enforceable rights to consent and compensation when their content is leveraged to train AI models."
