AWG | Creative workers note Productivity Commission’s ‘Friday before Christmas’ energy – Australian creative workers have criticised the Productivity Commission’s lack of meaningful action to support the growth of Australia’s creative industries in its final report on Harnessing Data and Digital Technologies, with the Friday 19 December release date drawing attention.
The report advocates for a ‘cautious’ approach to AI-specific regulation, stating it should be enacted as a last resort and that Government should “monitor the development of AI and its interaction with copyright over the next three years,” despite clear evidence that AI datasets have already infringed upon creator copyright and will continue to do so at the expense of creative workers.
Australian Writers’ Guild (AWG) and Australian Writers’ Guild Authorship Collection Society (AWGACS) CEO Claire Pullen said,
“It’s been two years since we first reported our members intellectual property had been stolen to ‘train’ AI datasets, and since then the theft has only grown. While it’s good to see the Productivity Commission tacitly acknowledge its overstep into copyright and walk back its sweeping and ill-informed position in the draft report, we must question why, after a year of consultation, their final report still evades any concrete action to support the productivity and growth of Australia’s creative sector and why the report was dropped the Friday before Christmas in a packed news week.”
After a notably bad appearance from the Productivity Commission highlighting a lack of modelling in front of a Senate committee early this year, the report continues to espouse the unfounded benefits of AI and continues to advocate for big tech, going as far to suggest that requiring dataset transparency would “have a chilling effect on innovation.”
“It is staggering to suggest that protecting a company’s AI dataset – a collection of works they did not create nor own under Australian copyright law – should supersede protecting a creator’s right to their own intellectual property,”
– said Pullen.
“If the Productivity Commission is serious about supporting the continued creation of new works, as they claim, there are clear steps that can and should be taken as soon as possible, including standalone legislation or certain amendments to the Copyright Act.”
The AWG and AWGACS are advocating for legislation including:
- the protection of First Nations cultural assets;
- a new economic right to use a work to ‘train’ an AI model;
- protections for voice, face, and likeness for all Australians;
- a moral right against using a work to ‘train’ AI.
“The fundamental issue the Productivity Commission has failed to address is that AI technology has been built on the stolen property of Australian screenwriters, playwrights, authors, artists and musicians, all knowingly infringed by bad-faith actors,”
– said Pullen.
Media Release – AWG
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AWG | Creative workers note Productivity Commission’s ‘Friday before Christmas’ energy
