Australian musicians hate AI using their songs, but have little legal protection
Australian musicians hate AI using their songs, but have little legal protection
Publish Date: 2026-06-30 23:23:00
Source Domain: theconversation.com
Music from Kylie Minogue, John Farnham, INXS, Midnight Oil, AC/DC, Tones and I, Gotye, Ben Frost, Nick Cave, Tame Impala, Parkway Drive, The Living End and Vance Joy has been found in a database of 12 million songs used to teach artificial intelligence.
This database, listing songs available on YouTube, is used by AI systems to train the ability to recognise and create music. AI relies entirely on these massive databases, trained on almost everything ever placed on the internet. And Australia’s inclusion in these databases is huge. Kylie alone has 182 songs in just one database.
The volume of Australian music used to train AI has caused significant anger in the Australian music industry, driven by the knowledge that “AI for music creators” platforms such as Suno create as much music as Spotify’s entire catalogue every two weeks.
Dobe Newton, co-writer of folk classic I am Australian and member of the Bushwackers, has music included in the databases. He believes there is “no real ethical nor moral underpinning” to current AI music practices.
Jesse Pattinson of The Delta Riggs is concerned about “the opportunity it will take away from real artists”. Screen composer and APRA board member Caitlin Yeo told me she holds “deep concern for the future of music made by humans for humans”.
She described feeling “violated” when discovering her work in these databases, realising decades of her work had been “hoovered up in a second” to “feed companies offshore that pay no taxes”.
While Australian artists are feeling ripped off, the intersection between copyright law and AI makes proving infringements incredibly difficult.
Copyright and AI
Lawsuits across multiple creative industries have covered how copyrighted books, speeches and even pornography have been used to train AI models.
These actions have led to massive settlements. In 2025, AI company Anthropic paid US$1.5 billion to writers who brought a class action…
