AI companies 'stole' Australian culture, news bosses say as they call for licensing deals

Australia’s leading media organisations, including the ABC, SBS, Nine, and News Corp, have presented a united front before a federal inquiry, demanding that global artificial intelligence firms establish mandatory licensing deals for the use of local news content. The executives argued that the current practice of scraping Australian journalism to train large language models constitutes a direct appropriation of intellectual property without fair compensation, threatening the sustainability of the nation’s media landscape.

During the hearings, industry leaders emphasised that journalism serves as an indispensable public good, providing the essential reporting that underpins a functioning democracy. They warned that if tech giants continue to harvest high-quality, fact-checked content to refine their algorithms without financial reciprocity, the economic foundations of local newsrooms will be further eroded, potentially silencing unique Australian voices in the digital age.

“The integrity of the fourth estate rests not just on the freedom to report, but on the protection of the very intellectual assets that define a nation’s democratic pulse.”

In response to the growing influence of generative AI, the media bosses are calling for a regulatory framework similar to the News Media Bargaining Code to ensure the value of Australian storytelling is preserved. While tech developers often cite ‘fair use’ as a legal justification for data collection, the Australian media industry maintains that the systematic extraction of national culture requires a commercial solution that respects the costs of original reporting.