thepublishingtimes.comEditorial

The Publishing Times

All the News That’s Fit to Publish

publishing-news · Guides

ASA Calls on Australia to Address AI Theft of Authors' Work

The Australian Society of Authors asked two parliamentary inquiries to make AI companies license copyright work in Australia, or let rightsholders sue here no matter where a model was trained.

The Publishing Times Editorial Desk · September 30, 2026 · 6 min read

ASA Calls on Australia to Address AI Theft of Authors' Work

What is the Australian Society of Authors asking Canberra to do about AI training? Make a license a condition of doing business in Australia, or change the Copyright Act so rightsholders can sue in Australia no matter where the model was trained. On September 30, 2026, the ASA said it had put that case into two parliamentary inquiries, aimed at what it calls the large-scale theft of Australian authors' and illustrators' work by multinational AI companies.

This is a separate ASA action from the model literary agent agreement the society published on September 29. The Publishing Times reported that agreement the same day. The September 30 post does not revisit the agreement. It is a submission to government.

Two inquiries, one demand

The ASA says it submitted to the Environment and Communications References Committee Inquiry into AI and Data Centres, and to the Joint Select Committee on AI Inquiry. In both, it says, the society underscored the need to reinforce and enforce Australia's existing copyright law, not to replace it.

The post's central ask is that the government compel Big Tech to license copyright work as a condition of doing business in Australia. The mechanism it names is a mandatory code covering multinational AI developers, irrespective of where their models are trained. The alternative it names is to strengthen the Copyright Act so that rightsholders can bring a claim in Australia whether the models were trained onshore or offshore. Either path, the ASA says, has to come with statutory damages, transparency requirements, and protections for Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property.

The society posted both documents from the news item: a submission to the Joint Select Committee and a submission to the AI and Data Centres inquiry.

What the ASA says was taken, and what it says that costs

The ASA says AI companies overseas have committed what, in Microsoft's own words, represents "the largest theft of labor in human history." It says developers took a range of copyright material, much of it from pirate websites, and used it to train generative models that the companies are now commercialising. It says the practice has produced outrage across the creative industries, condemnation in public polling, and, to date, approximately 150 copyright infringement cases in the United States.

The post says AI companies have themselves admitted that the practice is unsustainable, that it poses an "existential threat" to publishing, and that it "threatens the economic stability of those who create the content."

The harms the ASA lists are already, in its telling, visible in working writers' incomes. A flood of AI-generated books is being uploaded to online retailers. The ASA says 45% of submitted publications were rejected from Kobo on this basis. It says AI-generated knock-offs are being sold on Amazon. It says traffic to news sites and other sites where an author might build a profile has been dropping significantly since chatbots launched. It says creators are losing commissions and side income, including copywriting and graphic design, which it also calls professional training. It cites a recent UK report that 86% of authors reported a drop in income due to generative AI. And it says Australian authors earn just $18,200 per annum from their creative practice, so that further disruption makes a professional career unsustainable. The post does not name the UK report or the source of the $18,200 figure.

Licensing, not a weaker right

The ASA says the Australian government wants to accommodate frontier AI training in the country, and that this does not require watering down creators' rights. It argues against a new scheme for Big Tech and against upending copyright law to make unlicensed training easier onshore. The framework it says already exists is a license. Developers, it says, need to be compelled to license the copyright material that makes the technology possible.

The post treats the "too hard to license" claim as self-serving. It says AI companies are already entering licensing agreements where they judge the legal and commercial risk of going without a license to be too high. Its closing line on the policy choice is that Australia does not have to choose between AI investment and creators' rights, and that it can insist on both.

What the ASA wants authors to do

The post urges authors and illustrators to contact their local members of Parliament. It asks them to describe the theft that has already happened, the effect on their practice, and the society's Joint Select Committee submission. It points to the Parliament of Australia's members list as the way to find a local MP.

In the same passage, the ASA compares the treatment of Australian creators to "what we have learned was done to Medicare by OpenAI," and it quotes OpenAI's then policy director, Jack Clark, from testimony it dates to May 2020: "there will be a point where a bunch of artists express worry about what we're doing here and we'll likely ignore their concerns and release anyway." The news post does not set out the Medicare episode. It uses the comparison, and the Clark line, to argue that the companies have already said what they think.

Why it matters for authors

Australian authors have a specific request to put in front of a local MP: a mandatory license as a condition of doing business in Australia, or a Copyright Act change that lets rightsholders sue here no matter where the model was trained, with statutory damages, transparency, and protections for Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property. The ASA is not routing that request through the approximately 150 United States cases it cites. It is asking writers and illustrators to contact Parliament directly about training it says drew on pirate websites, and it argues the country can host frontier AI training without watering down the right that makes a license worth signing.

Sources