Artists urge big tech to pay up for scraping their work

Australian artists whose work has been scraped for AI say they are victims of copyright crime - but they don't plan on taking tech companies to court. "I'm a writer, but I'm standing here before you today, really, as a victim of crime," author Anna Funder told reporters at Parliament House in Canberra on Wednesday. Funder is one of countless Australian artists whose work has been collected to train artificial intelligence models without permission, a practice known as scraping, or slurping. "I feel like I've been building, slowly and painstakingly with a massive mortgage, a block of flats," she said, flanked by a gaggle of musicians, authors and industry figures in the nation's capital. "Each book is a flat, and I rent it out, and the money that I get is royalties. These big tech bros have moved into my flats, kicked me out, and are charging rent for my work." Big tech should ask artists' permission to scrape their work and pay them royalties under copyright law. The federal government ruled out a tech exemption to those laws in October, and artists are still seeing their work slurped. "I've written 43 books, 67 books have been scraped without permission, that includes translations," children's author Andy Griffiths said on Wednesday. "They are going for everything." The Tech Council of Australia, chaired by Atlassian co-founder Scott Farquhar, said it hoped a fair solution could be arrived at. ''The Tech Council hopes a path forward can be found that enables AI to be developed here in Australia, in the national interest, while ensuring fair outcomes for creators and the creative industries,'' it said in a statement. Taking big tech to court was not the way forward, according to Funder. She cited a landmark $US1.5 billion settlement between artists and AI juggernaut Anthropic in September, which awarded her $US3000 as compensation for scraped works. "(Anthropic) are not the good guys," she said. Government should stand back from deal-making between tech companies and creative industries, but should be proactive in fending off Silicon Valley's requests for copyright carve-outs, the artists said. "We shouldn't have to spend creators' monies ... to protect their rights here," music licensing group APRA AMCOS chief executive Dean Ormston told reporters. "Canberra Airport's never been so busy, (big tech lobbyists) flying out from the US," he said. AI models are usually trained in the US, complicating any court battle Australian artists might wish to mount. "You actually have to bring infringement cases in the United States, and that is exactly what is happening," ARIA chief executive Annabelle Herd told reporters. Worldwide, almost 300 commercial AI licensing deals have been inked with content companies such as Conde Nast and Warner Music. About 270 court cases are under way against AI firms in various jurisdictions, but there are no copyright infringement cases against AI companies recorded in Australian courts.