The ARIA OpenAI copyright fight landed in the Macquarie Room on Tuesday. Annabelle Herd, chief executive of the Australian Recording Industry Association and the Phonographic Performance Company of Australia, told the Joint Select Committee that OpenAI and Anthropic want to train frontier agents here without following Australian copyright law.
“OpenAI and Anthropic want the Australian Government to sign up to a deal to train their frontier AI agents here on the proviso that they don’t have to abide by our copyright laws,” Herd said.
ARIA said she warned that changing the law to suit the two companies could make Australia a Trojan horse for big AI, and a safe haven for industrial-scale copyright use. The hearing was the committee’s first public sitting. Labor MP Jo Briskey is the chair.
What the ARIA OpenAI copyright ask is tied to
Herd’s line sits next to the data-centre deals. OpenAI signed a memorandum in December 2025 with NextDC to be an initial customer of a planned campus in Sydney. Anthropic signed in September for capacity at a planned centre in Queensland, subject to Foreign Investment Review Board approval. The ABC has reported that Anthropic intends to use that site to answer queries, not to train Claude.
The morning of the hearing belonged to creators. ARIA was in the 10.40am block with the Australian Association of Voice Actors and the Australian Writers’ Guild. APRA AMCOS, the Copyright Agency, the Copyright Council and the Arts Law Centre followed at 11.30am. Anthropic was at 12.10pm. OpenAI’s Jason Kwon was at 2pm.
Google’s government affairs manager Roxanne Carter told the same committee that an opt-in system, with prior permission from every rights holder, would stop AI development in Australia. Microsoft’s Jordan Gimbel said Australian copyright leaves a high level of uncertainty about training.
What Anthropic said back
Anthropic’s special envoy, former US ambassador Jeffrey Bleich, told the committee the company had “never tried to dictate to Australia” on copyright. He said licensing every piece of content on the internet is technically impossible, and that Australia will end up with models trained elsewhere if it will not cut a deal.
The ABC, which opened the day, rejected that. Head of content and legal operations Kate Gilchrist said the copyright system is already adequate, because the labs can buy licences. She said she did not have conclusive proof the ABC had been scraped, and that she expected it was likely.
The committee has hearings through 9 October and a report due on 30 November. The data-centre standards consultation closes at 5pm AEDT on 9 October. Herd’s free-ride line is the creators’ version of the same week.
