APRA AMCOS has weighed into reports that OpenAI is withholding discussions about investment in Australian AI training infrastructure and renewable energy unless the Federal Government weakens copyright protections for creators.

APRA AMCOS CEO Dean Ormston said no multinational AI platform operating in Australia had approached the organisation about licensing music for AI training.

“Not one enquiry in nearly four years,” Ormston said.

He said AI companies routinely paid for other inputs, including Nvidia chips, electricity, water, land, construction and engineering, while refusing to pay for creative work used to train their models.

“A model trained on nothing produces nothing,” Ormston said.

Ormston argued that Australia already had an established framework for licensing music, pointing to agreements negotiated with commercial radio, television, streaming services and digital platforms over the past century.

“The machinery to do that exists and it is ready,” he said. “What is different here is the refusal to turn up.”

He said the Government had established a policy framework for AI in July, when Prime Minister Anthony Albanese addressed the issue at the University of Sydney, affirming that Australian creators retain ownership and control of their work.

APRA AMCOS is calling for an urgent Government study to quantify the value of Australian intellectual property and copyright as a national asset, as part of its submission to the Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence.

Ormston said the value of Australian creative intellectual property should be understood before negotiations with AI developers take place.

“Government should know the value of what is being brokered before anyone sits down to discuss it,” he said.

“We want AI training to happen in Australia, built on Australian ingenuity, and properly licensed. That offer has been open since 2023 and it remains open today.”