Michael Miller.
News Corp Australasia executive chairman Michael Miller today issued an urgent warning of a threat to Australia’s sovereignty from big tech walking all over copyright safeguards.
In an address to the Melbourne Press Club, titled The Big Steal, Miller said journalism and the stories of Australians and Australia must be protected from AI and big tech.
“We are, arguably, being asked to surrender…our stories, our voice, our culture, our identity and, ultimately, our Australianess,” he said.
The creative industries shouldn’t be asked by tech and AI companies to opt-out of their proposed text and data mining regime that legalises theft.
Rather, they should accept that Australia’s existing copyright law includes them and it’s time they adhered to the law.
“Make no mistake, we are at the dawn of the next new digital landscape and yet we are being challenged to accept another wave of publicly endorsed theft, and an assault on our privacy, our identities … and our livelihoods,” he said.
“If it was a video game, it would be called Grand Theft Australia.”
The Tech Council of Australia and some AI companies are pushing for a text and data Mining exception in the Copyright Act to allow free scrapping of currently copyright protected works.
Miller referred to The Tech Council of Australia’s cChair, Scott Farquhar, who recently told the National Press Club that “fixing” copyright laws was a matter of “urgency” because our laws are “out of sync” internationally.
Changing them, he said, would be the “one thing that could unlock billions of dollars of foreign investment into Australia”.
Miller said the use of the conditional “could” is telling.
“How is it that the tech lobby has put so little effort into quantifying the benefits to back their claim when the cost they are seeking to impose on us is so high and so quantifiable,” he said.
“How many of these data sheds are they planning to build, and how concrete are the commitments, really?”
At a Senate hearing last week into Australia’s cultural policy, musicians such as Briggs, Jack River and Paul Dempsey, along with authors such as Thomas Kenneally, Anna Funder and Caroline Overington, expressed alarm at any changes to our copyright laws.
As Keneally put it: “It is copyright. It’s not copy charity. It’s not copy privilege. It’s not copy indulgence. It’s copyright.”
Miller said Australia’s copyright law is fit for purpose.
“Our copyright law does not require changing,” he said.
“Tech and AI companies should not be given a free pass to access content - to avoid paying for it.
“I am calling on the Australian government to once and for all rule out changing Australian copyright law to benefit these companies.
“Like any other company, these companies must pay market rates for inputs to their businesses. They must not be given government subsidies.
“The government should also not be seduced into exploring alternative mechanisms that would have similar damaging outcomes that would decimate Australia’s creative industries and silence Australian voices.
“We are still in the early days of Generative AI but already, as with past digital disruptions, the news media is again among the first to find itself walking down both sides of the street at once.
“Without doubt AI offers extraordinary possibilities to journalism but at the same time it could destroy our industry if it is allowed to hoover up our work and deliver to vast audiences with no attribution and no payment.”
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