Across Australia, artists, journalists and Aboriginal cultural workers launched the "Stop AI Theft" campaign to press for stronger legal protection as generative AI becomes more common. They say popular AI models have scraped internet content without permission, producing near-identical works and reducing income and jobs for creators. Voice actors reported cloned voices, local journalists reported plagiarism, and Indigenous activists said generative AI was used to make and sell fake Indigenous art.
The Tech Council of Australia reported in August 2025 that 84 percent of Australians in office jobs use AI and projected substantial economic gains by 2030. A January 2026 University of Sydney report warned that journalists are increasingly rendered invisible in generative AI search results. Campaigners used the hashtag #PayUp to highlight that tech companies profit while creators lose business.
MEAA set out specific demands at a July 2024 Senate hearing and pushed for legal and practical change. Key demands included:
- an opt-out for users so their work is not used to train AI,
- legislation to require compensation for creative and media workers,
- transparency rules forcing companies to disclose training materials.
Campaigners sent an open letter to major tech CEOs, held dialogue with companies in August 2025, and welcomed the Federal government's October 2025 announcement to maintain copyright protections. The December 2025 National AI Plan said Australia would assess existing laws for AI risks and ruled out a text and data mining exception, a move campaigners said blocked proposals to give tech firms free access to Australian works for training.
Difficult words
- generative — producing new content from data or modelsgenerative AI
- scrape — copy information from websites without permissionscraped
- plagiarism — copying another person's work without credit
- clone — make an identical copy of a voicecloned voices
- compensation — payment given for work or for losses
- transparency — clear public information about how something workstransparency rules
- opt-out — a choice to be excluded from a service
- copyright — legal right that protects original creative workscopyright protections
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Discussion questions
- How could transparency rules forcing companies to disclose training materials help creators?
- Do you think an opt-out for training data is a fair solution? Why or why not?
- What effects might ruling out a text and data mining exception have on Australian creators and tech companies?
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