APRA AMCOS statement on OpenAI
Four years, not one phone call and no intention to pay
"Creative work is the only ingredient they refuse to pay for, and it is the one ingredient without which none of it functions."
"We want AI training to happen in Australia, built on Australian ingenuity, and properly licensed."
APRA AMCOS has responded to reports that OpenAI will not discuss investment in Australian AI training or renewable energy unless the Australian Government weakens copyright protections for Australian creators.
"Since generative AI models became publicly available at the end of 2022, no multinational AI platform operating in Australia has approached us to discuss how a licence for training would work. Not one enquiry in nearly four years," APRA AMCOS CEO Dean Ormston said.
"Every other ingredient in these products is paid for at market rates, without complaint. They pay Nvidia for the chips. They pay for the power, the water, the land and the construction. They pay their engineers, and they pay their army of lawyers and lobbyists. Creative work is the only ingredient they refuse to pay for, and it is the one ingredient without which none of it functions. A model trained on nothing produces nothing.
"We have licensed music in this country for 100 years and very little of it came easily. Commercial radio, television, streaming services, the digital platforms. Every one of them argued with us, several fought us for years, and some of it was settled in court. That is how a price gets set, and it has always ended in the same place. A licence is built, and money reaches the people who wrote the songs.
"The machinery to do that exists and it is ready. What is different here is the refusal to turn up. Describing copyright as a barrier, having never once tested it, does not stand up."
Mr Ormston said the Australian Government settled the policy question in July.
"The Prime Minister was unambiguous in his address at the University of Sydney. Australian writers, musicians, artists and journalists retain ownership and control of their work, including control over its price, and anything less is theft. The Office of AI was established that day to build standards founded on consent and payment. Those standards should now be built, and built quickly."
APRA AMCOS said the terms being sought went to the ownership of a national asset.
"Australian intellectual property and copyright is one of the few inputs in this build that Australia actually owns. The chips are imported. The models are foreign owned. What is being proposed is that we hand over the part we hold for nothing, in exchange for infrastructure that could be relocated at any time," added Ormston.
"Investment that is conditional on a country rewriting its property law is not investment."
Mr Ormston said the approach being taken was not confined to Australia.
"This is not a copyright issue. It is a coordinated attempt to use the scale of these companies to pressure sovereign governments into extinguishing an obligation to pay, one country at a time. It was tried in the United Kingdom, where by OpenAI's own account it did not work. Australia is now being asked to go first instead.
"These companies are seeking grid connection, water, planning approvals, skilled visas and the acceptance of the communities who will live alongside this infrastructure. Every one of those things rests on public consent. Announcing in the national press that you will not pay creators for the work that makes your product function is an unusual way to seek it."
In its submission to the current Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence, APRA AMCOS has called on the Australian Government to commission an urgent study quantifying the value of Australia's intellectual property and copyright as a national asset class, ahead of any negotiation with AI developers.
"No one has ever measured what this asset is worth. It appreciates when it is licensed into AI development and it depreciates every time it is stolen without a licence. Government should know the value of what is being brokered before anyone sits down to discuss it," Ormston concluded.
"We want AI training to happen in Australia, built on Australian ingenuity, and properly licensed. That offer has been open since 2023 and it remains open today. The invitation is a simple one. Tell us what you need and we'll negotiate a price."
