AI companies could use creators' work without paying them under leaked government copyright proposal

The attorney-general's office made the proposal as part of consultations with rights-holders' groups earlier this month. ( ABC News: Scott Preston )

Link copied Share Share article AI companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic would be allowed to train their models on online content without paying its creators as long as they struck deals with enough rights holders, under one copyright reform plan put forward in government documents seen by the ABC.

The attorney-general's department made the proposal as part of consultations with rights-holders' groups earlier this month, which would make inclusion in AI training opt-out by default.

The revelation comes as the Albanese government tries to break a months-long gridlock over reforms to copyright law.

AI models are typically trained on enormous amounts of data scraped from the internet, including copyrighted materials taken without their owners' permissions, to the chagrin of creative groups.