Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has pledged that AI and tech companies will not be permitted to use copyright-protected creative works without consent, credit and fair payment, a stance that has been strongly welcomed by the international music publishing industry. Speaking at the University of Sydney, Albanese said no company should use Australian books, music, art or news to train AI systems without the creator's control, including over pricing, describing anything less as "theft" — a declaration seen as a significant win for artists worldwide amid fears that governments might carve out copyright exemptions for AI developers.

The International Confederation of Music Publishers (ICMP), which represents around 90% of the world's commercially released music, said the "implications are global" and that its industry "fully agrees" with the government's approach. The announcement follows sustained lobbying from Australian bodies including AMPAL, ARIA, AIR and APRA AMCOS, who had warned that weakening copyright protections could put over 60,000 years of First Nations cultural heritage at risk. Albanese rejected proposals from tech leaders including Microsoft's Satya Nadella and Anthropic's Dario Amodei for a compensation fund in lieu of licensing, and instead announced a new "Office of AI" to help develop Australian standards for the technology.