Academics from UNSW have proposed a new copyright framework that would give Australian artists greater control over how artificial intelligence companies use their work, including the right to refuse AI training and receive compensation.
Dubbed Copyright Plus, the proposal aims to address gaps in Australia’s copyright protections as generative AI systems increasingly draw on creative works to train models and produce synthetic content.
Professor Kathy Bowrey, intellectual property specialist at UNSW Law, said creators currently lacked meaningful control over how technology companies used their work.
“Artists simply don’t have power over how technology companies use their work, a meaningful say in how media companies license copyright in their works, nor any power to remove unauthorised synthetic works from circulation,” Bowrey said in a statement.
The framework would introduce obligations for AI companies to disclose their training data sources, while copyright holders would need to reveal licensing terms affecting creators, including payment arrangements and provisions that could affect artists’ moral rights.
It would also require companies involved in licensing to respect creators’ ability to refuse to have their work scraped for AI training or mimicked in AI-generated content.
Associate Professor Oliver Bown, a co-author of the proposal and a creative technologies expert at UNSW Arts, Design & Architecture, said public access to creative work should not mean surrendering control over its use.
Under Copyright Plus, an AI operations and licence fee would fund a remuneration scheme for creators whose work may have been used without permission, alongside a broader cultural fund supporting the arts sector.
The proposed payments would be distributed through unions and professional organisations, potentially reaching performers, voice artists, session musicians, and visual artists who have not participated in major commercial AI licensing deals.
Bowrey said mandatory reporting of training data sources was already part of European Union and Californian law, while overseas copyright litigation was exposing the unauthorised use of Australian content.
The proposal would also establish an expedited takedown process for suspected AI-generated imitations and other unauthorised content. Artists and First Nations Peoples could report material that mimics their work or breaches licensing conditions and Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property restrictions.
Bown said Australia’s approach to AI should reflect the public interest principles that helped shape institutions such as the ABC following the emergence of radio.
“The technological developments underpinning modern AI, as with the internet, were made with public money – and so, should result in technologies that serve the public good,” Bown said.
“If we don’t design people power into our AI policies, we resign ourselves to being dictated to by foreign corporate powers.”
Want to see more stories from trusted news sources?Make Cyber Daily a preferred news source on Google.
