Labor accused of throwing creatives ‘under the bus’ with proposal to ease copyright protections for AI giants

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/sep/16/pocock-says-labor-easing-copyright-protections-for-ai-datacentre-investment-would-throw-creatives-under-the-bus

The Albanese government is considering giving AI companies access to Australian creatives’ works by default as it pursues a compromise with US tech giants.

The proposals were revealed as senior personnel from OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, met with Labor ministers and warned that Australia’s copyright laws were preventing the company from training models locally.

The independent senator David Pocock said the compromise would throw protections for creatives and copyright holders “under the bus” in pursuit of datacentre funding.

“It would mean putting AI companies’ interests over everyday Australians, giving AI companies access to all Australians’ content, unless they opt out,” Pocock said on Tuesday.

103 points · 8 comments · view on lemmy.world

8 Comments

Cypher@aussie.zone · 11 pts · 3d (2 replies)

Given his consistently good takes and popularity I doubt Pocock will ever be PM.

arbilp3@aussie.zone · 3 pts · 3d

Plus he's not in any party machine so is not so easily compromised.

Tenderizer@aussie.zone · 1 pts · 2d

He's only got good takes if you are a very specific kind of politically uninformed. If you are gullible enough to swallow every anti-Labor narrative out there.

If Pocock is in favour of it but Labor isn't, there's almost always a good reason. Gambling reforms aside. Labor gets most of it's backing from trade unions, Pocock gets most of his backing from rich people.

pulsewidth@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 4d

Always rules for thee but not for me. Pathetic stance from Labor again.

Will they ever decide to meaningfully invest in our own people (tech, arts, science; tertiary industries) or just forever give big concessions to primary industry and international businesses that don't need them? Donald Horne was not wrong.

Walk_blesseD@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 7 pts · 3d (2 replies)

Australian Labor Party is somewhat of a misnomer. If the dishonesty didn't prove so politically useful to them perhaps they'd be better off calling themselves "Yet Another Capital Party."

Wataba@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 3d (1 reply)

As opposed to the Liberals, who are steaming ahead with anti-liberty nationalistic shit, which is a lot fucking worse than what Labor is doing right now.

Walk_blesseD@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 2d

ok...? i wasn't talking about them...?

nevetsg@aussie.zone · 3 pts · 4d

So the paper in question had multiple suggestions/options. I can only guess, because the article doesn't say, that there was a range from most lenient to most restrictive. Each with the foreseen pros and cons. All of this information will be used in drafting any law changes. Because this is how the Gov works...
Then the most lenient are cherry picked to be leaked to the media...