UNSW Academics Propose ‘Copyright Plus’ to Let Australian Artists Refuse AI Training and Share in a Payment Scheme
Two UNSW academics have put forward a new copyright framework that would give Australian artists more say over how artificial intelligence companies use their work, including the right to refuse AI training and to be paid when their work has been used, Cyber Daily reported. The proposal, called Copyright Plus, is aimed at gaps in current law as generative AI systems draw on music, writing, images and voices to train models and produce synthetic content.
Professor Kathy Bowrey, an intellectual property specialist at UNSW Law, said artists currently have no power over how technology companies use their work, little say in how media companies license it, and no way to remove unauthorised synthetic works from circulation. Under the plan, AI companies would have to disclose where their training data comes from, while copyright holders would need to reveal licensing terms that affect creators, including payment arrangements and anything that touches artists’ moral rights.
Licensing would also have to respect a creator’s choice to refuse having their work scraped for training or mimicked in AI output. An AI operations and licence fee would fund a remuneration scheme for creators whose work may have been used without permission, alongside a broader cultural fund for the arts. Payments would be distributed through unions and professional bodies, which the authors say could reach performers, voice artists, session musicians and visual artists who sit outside the big commercial licensing deals.
What it means in practice
The proposal arrives in the middle of a long argument over whether Australia should loosen copyright for AI. Creators reacted strongly when leaked policy options pointed to training scrapes, and critics including the Pope’s AI adviser warned against an opt-out model. Some developers have taken positions of their own, as when Anthropic said it would not train Claude in Australia until copyright pays.
Copyright Plus also proposes an expedited takedown process. Artists and First Nations people could report material that imitates their work, breaches licensing conditions or ignores Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property restrictions. Bowrey noted that mandatory reporting of training data sources is already part of European Union and Californian law. Associate Professor Oliver Bown, a co-author from UNSW Arts, Design and Architecture, compared the moment to the public interest thinking that shaped the ABC when radio arrived, arguing that technologies built partly with public money should serve the public good.
The hard questions are practical: who would set and collect the licence fee, how foreign AI companies would be made to pay it, and how unions would decide who is owed what. What to watch next is whether the government’s copyright and AI reference group takes up any of these ideas, and whether arts bodies line up behind the model.