AI Copyright Plan Shifts the Burden to Authors

Kylie Moore-Gilbert says AI-generated summaries and knock-offs of her memoir, The Uncaged Sky, have contributed to her income falling. “Each time a reader watches or listens to such a clip rather than reading or listening to my book is a sale I lose and royalties I don't receive,” she said. Technology companies have scraped vast amounts of authored work. Now a leaked government proposal would let them train AI models on that work unless rights holders opt out.

Who Has to Protect the Work

The proposed opt-out system reverses the burden: authors and other rights holders would have to tell companies to stop using their work, rather than companies seeking permission first. At last week's Joint Select Committee hearings on artificial intelligence, Hachette Australia and New Zealand head Louise Stark said companies backing the model wanted government to reverse “a basic principle: if you want to use someone else's work, you should first seek permission.” “An opt-out model shifts the burden onto the very people whose rights should be protected,” she said.

The Australian Society of Authors said the problem is already here. It cited a UK report in which 86 per cent of surveyed authors said generative AI had reduced their income. A Microsoft executive described the scraping of authored work as “the largest theft of labour in human history.” The figures and words show who has to chase after a violation, and who can put the work to use.

Writers and publishers opposed the proposed copyright change at last week's hearings, while advocacy groups, including the Australian Publishers Association, urged the government to require disclosure of AI use in texts. The Joint Select Committee on Artifical Intelligence's final report is due on November 30. The committee heard the dispute. The source describes no community-led response or mutual-aid effort.

The Cost Lands on Writers

Moore-Gilbert said online summaries and knock-offs of her memoir let readers consume a condensed version without paying for her book. “If someone wanted to read a condensed version of my book in a couple of hours without paying for it, they could listen to this instead,” she said. She linked each such view or listen to a lost sale and royalties she doesn't receive.

The Australian Society of Authors cited a UK report finding that 86 per cent of surveyed authors said generative AI had reduced their income. More than 150 legal cases over generative AI have been launched in the United States, but courts haven't yet provided definitive answers on enforcing copyright infringements. The legal machinery is still catching up for writers, even as the material consequences show up in income.

Stuart Glover, Australian Publishers Association head of policy, said AI-generated books could “displace” writers from receiving compensation. He said the overall effect on publishing was difficult to determine, but attributed the softening non-fiction book market to the technology. Instructional books, including travel guides and cookbooks, were at “particular risk.” “Anything which has a hard reference edge to it I suspect is in a kind of terminal decline,” he said, adding that the picture was mixed and required responsible government regulation.

A New Gatekeeping Industry

One proposed response is certification that a work is human-authored. Schemes use interviews, requests for edit histories and analysis with AI tools. Trevor Woods, CEO of certification company Proudly Human, said individual authors, publishers and writers' groups would pay for the service. He expects certification tools to become less effective over time, though he predicts the industry could be worth “hundreds of millions or billions of dollars” at its height.

Asked whether technology companies or governments should fund certification, Woods called that unrealistic: “It's like asking the bad guys that have robbed you of everything to then give you a little bit of money back to try and make you feel better about it.” Authors and publishers may have to carry the cost of this proposed safeguard.

The pressure reaches beyond copyright claims. Louise Doughty, a judge on the 2026 Commonwealth Short Story Prize, said the prize's investigation found its winner's work was human-authored, despite an accusation of AI use. She warned that detection tools can produce false positives, especially for new authors with less published work for comparison, and said frivolous or malicious accusations could derail a writer's career.

Publishers are scrutinising submissions more closely, updating author contracts, seeking human-authored certifications and becoming hesitant about publishing new writers. Australian Copyright Council CEO Eileeen Camilleri said copyright requires a human author: an AI spell-checker or editor wouldn't void copyright, but generated text may not qualify. As publishers tighten their checks, authors must prove both that their work is theirs and that it deserves a place on the shelf.