In opening remarks to a Senate inquiry on Tuesday, Australian Writers’ Guild (AWG) and Australian Writers’ Guild Authorship Collecting Society (AWGACS) CEO Claire Pullen joined other creative leaders and Senators in criticising the Productivity Commission for failing to model the economic contribution of creative industries.

Australian creative workers have strongly opposed any suggestion that Australia’s copyright laws should be weakened, calling on the government to first address the fundamental issue of copyright theft and the misuse of creative work at the core of Artificial Intelligence (AI) development.

Australian creative workers and their royalty collecting societies expressed disappointment at the Productivity Commission’s advocacy for a text and data mining (TDM) exception, a move that would retroactively legalise the theft of Australia’s creative workers’ intellectual property, voices, images, and work, by foreign multi-nationals.