Am I ever gonna train AI again ... no way get f****d, f**k off! Music legends open up on OpenAI.
It is one of the hottest topics in modern culture. And amid the tech-talk and legalese, Jimmy Barnes make it pretty clear what he thinks.
Fo Shizzle, Cold Chisel:
Jimmy Barnes has offered the world’s biggest AI companies some very specific feedback. Passionate, succinct, but let’s be compeltely honest, unlikely to feature in a government white paper.
“I think that these companies should go and f..k themselves. And they can mine and scrape that sentence, or whatever they want to call their stealing, as much as they like.” — Jimmy Barnes.
Paul Kelly, Peter Garrett, Mark Seymour, members of the Go-Betweens, a who’s who of Australian rock and pop royalty are among the artists demanding the Albanese government protect their rights.
And it is getting personal. Albo is being reminded that all ten songs that he promoted as his personal selection for Triple J’s 2025 poll of the Hottest 100 Australian songs of all time, every single one of them, have appeared in datasets associated with AI training.
“I don’t want my songs, lyrics, voice, sound and image taken and used without permission or payment by AI companies ... A lifetime of learning, thinking, playing and creating goes into every song. To cheapen the arts in this way is a shortcut to a dead end.” — Paul Kelly.
And if you think it might just be the crusty old vanguard of Oz rock who are up in arms, while the tech savvy kids are cool with it all think again. G Flip, Thelma Plum, Lime Cordiale, KLP and countless younger artists, who come on be honest you’ve not heard of, are 100% onboard with Barnesy’s brutal backhander.
What’s the fuss about?
AI systems such as ChatGPT and Claude are called Large Language Models for a reason. Essentially these platforms learn from vast quantities of material, including books, websites, images and music.
The software examines patterns in this material, learning how to generate its own responses.
This basic, governing principle at the heart of GPTs leads to some slightly snarky pundits referring to the latest AI platforms as nothing more than glorified auto-correct. Others are blown away at what the simple science of language prediction has achieved.
Regardless, the analysis of absolute bucket-loads of text, images and audio is central to the AI revolution.
But much of that material is protected by copyright. And plenty of creators say nobody asked them for permission to use it.
It is well documented that Meta downloaded the vast online library LibGen, and its trove of millions of illegally copied books and research papers, in training its models. And it is pretty safe to assume the other players have followed suit.
Yes there have been murmurings about compensation, but as a general rule, training requires ingesting massive amounts of content, and it seems the vast bulk of this content was not knwoingly and willingly given up by its creators.
The AI companies want Australian copyright laws changed to make this training easier.
One proposal, supported by Anthropic, would allow copyrighted material to be used unless its owner explicitly opted out.
The federal government has already ruled out a blanket exemption for AI training. But other changes, including opt-out arrangements, have been explored.
And the stakes are enormous.
In The Guardian, Victoria Oakley, head of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, warned that Australia could become a loophole allowing companies to train on music from around the world.
She called weakening copyright protections a potential disaster for creativity.
“I don’t think Australia wants to be the weakest link in this situation, the one that believed the promises and gave in and threw creativity under the bus on behalf of everyone else. That doesn’t feel very Australian to me.” — Victoria Oakley.
Does this album have a b-side?
Absolutely.
AI companies argue that training software to recognise patterns is fundamentally different from reproducing somebody’s song or book. It is similar to an argument that has, at times, succeeded in US courts: that using copyrighted material to produce something substantially different can qualify as what the legal eagles call fair use.
There’s also the question of investment. Yes, good old moolah. Australia is openly courting the big tech companies, pointing to our geographic and therefore geopolitical distance and stability as a reason why major infrascturcture should be deployed here.
Well OpenAI and Anthropic counter that Australia’s copyright restrictions could discourage billions of dollars in AI infrastructure investment.
And supporters of reform point out something awkward: Australians can already use AI systems trained overseas, while strict domestic rules could make it harder for Australian businesses to build their own.
Opponents push back noting that if Australia wobbles on this it could, by default, lower the bar worldwide when it comes to opposing the tech behemoths.
The practical difficulty of negotiating licences for enormous quantities of online material is another legitimate concern.
Music industry representatives counter that licensing already works for streaming platforms and that smaller AI companies have negotiated agreements. If they can do it, along with Spotify and the other major music streamers, why can’t OpenAi et al come to the block party?
Take the mic Albo.
So where does that leave the PM?
Asked about Barnes on Tuesday, Albanese pointed back to his July address “AI in Australia’s interests” wherein he promised that Australian creators would control whether their work was used to train AI, including what they were paid.
“No company should use Australian books, music, art or news to build or train AI without the artist’s control. That includes the artist’s control of the price and value of their work. Anything less, is theft.” — Prime Minister Albanese, University of Sydney, 15 July 2026.
So there we have it.
The government already have a fair bit on their hands with everything from a-still-shut Strait of Hormuz, to a resurgent One Nation. I’m sure there are more than a few ‘faceless men’ seeing DJ Albo cop heat of, from all places, Australia’s rock and roll firmament and … perhaps using language not unlike one James Barnes Esquire.
Further Reading:
AI in Australia’s Interests: Prime Minister Albanese, Unviersity of Sydney, 15 July 2026.
Weakening AI copyright law will spell ‘disaster for creativity’, global music body warns Albanese: Guardian Monday 9 November.
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