October 22, 2026
The Australian government has announced that it is planning to introduce legislation that would change copyright law to allow AI companies to use authors’ work, without a license, to build their models. This would apply to authors from anywhere in the world, including the United States.
The legislation would make it legal for your work to be exploited by AI companies, if they conducted that exploitation on Australian soil. It would effectively preempt the lawsuits authors have brought against AI companies and our lobbying for protections since the AI companies would simply move their training operations to Australia while continuing to deploy the models in the U.S.
The Australian government plans to let copyright owners opt out of their work being used, but opt-outs are difficult to implement and often steamroll over the rights of all but the most sophisticated copyright owners who know they need to opt out and how to do so. Opt-out systems are no substitute for copyright’s opt-in licensing that allows creators to control who gets to use their work for what purposes.
The Authors Guild has joined organizations in the creative industries around the world in organizing a public statement condemning this planned legislation. It reads as follows:
The Australian government must not legalize the theft of the work of the world’s creators on their soil. Our work must only be used to train AI models in Australia with our explicit permission.
This statement will be published online, along with a list of signatories. Submit the form below to sign now.
