AI giant Anthropic has urged the Albanese government to consider giving conditional approval for big tech to train its models on Australian copyrighted works under an opt‑out model, after conceding it will not secure a blanket copyright exemption. The company argues that such a framework could transform the Australian economy, drive a new wave of productivity and solve some of the nation’s biggest challenges, while also acknowledging serious implications for national security, critical infrastructure resilience and public safety.
The ABC and SBS have responded with strong criticism, calling on the government to enact strict rules to compensate media organisations and protect public‑interest journalism. In submissions to a federal parliamentary inquiry, the ABC demanded that AI firms be subject to the same copyright, defamation and privacy rules as media outlets, warning of a “cannibalisation” of mainstream news. Both broadcasters also suggested that AI companies be included in the news bargaining incentive, which would require them to make commercial deals with large media outlets to support journalism.
The joint select committee on AI will hold a series of hearings in Sydney next week, with executives from Anthropic and OpenAI expected to attend after OpenAI admitted one of its agents had accessed Services Australia data in June. Anthropic’s submission highlighted potential economic gains and national security concerns, and it outlined plans to invest billions in Australian data centres and support frontier model training.
The government has ruled out a text‑and‑data‑mining exemption, with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese promising “the strongest possible protection” for Australian creatives. The opt‑out proposal remains contentious. SBS argued that robots.txt signals are routinely ignored or bypassed and that the burden should lie with AI companies. Both broadcasters called for AI inclusion in the news bargaining incentive that already applies to Facebook, Instagram, Google, TikTok and Snapchat.
