Anthony Albanese has been urged to resist tech giant pressure to open the doors for AI models to scrape content amid creator concerns over new details of Labor’s proposed AI reforms.

Independent Senator David Pocock accused Labor of throwing creatives “under the bus” over two options posed in leaked departmental documents which will force creators to actively block AI to protect their work.

One will charge AI companies to give them access to unprotected material via a central licensing pool which will then disrupt the funds to registered creators.

While the other would give tech companies free rein to unprotected materials but only if the company signed a minimum number of direct deals across the industry.

Labor MP Ed Husic has warned his colleagues in the government that forcing creatives to “opt-out” of AI models sucking up their content would be “unfeasible”.

In a keynote address at the University of Sydney on July 15, however, Mr Albanese had pledged that Labor would protect creators’ rights and give them control over their work.

“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,” the PM had said at the time.

But Mr Husic claimed the documents indicated a position which would undermine the PM’s landmark speech.

“He was very clear we wouldn’t undermine the position of creatives through any watering down of copyright,” Mr Husic told ABC.

“We have this proposal which I believe very clearly undermines what the Prime Minister said.”

Australian Copyright Council chief executive Eileen Camilleri called for the PM to remain firm on the nation’s “world-leading copyright framework” and keep copyright protections for creators front-of-mind when developing AI framework.

She told The Nightly when cases of copyright emerge from AI models, creators have to jump through several hurdles to seek remuneration.

Ms Camilleri said when a creator realised their material had been scraped by AI, they would have to find and prove where the infringement occurred and then issue proceedings in that jurisdiction.

She said France has first attempted an approach which flipped the burden of proof but that the legislation had since stalled.

Under that approach, the legal burden would shift to AI developers to prove they had not used protected creative works without consent.

Mr Albanese intends to raise his approach to AI at the UN General Assembly in New York next week, which requires tech giants who want to build data centres Down Under to bring their own renewable energy.

The approach has recently attracted an ultimatum from OpenAI who has threatened to withdraw investment from Australia if it doesn’t water down the copyright restrictions.

But Greens digital spokesman David Shoebridge argued the PM needed to secure the Australian public’s support before presenting the government’s AI approach internationally.

“Before the Prime Minister goes to the UN to sell a plan, he’s got to sell it to the Australian public, and he’s fundamentally failed to do that,” Senator Shoebridge said.

“Communities are in open revolt against Labor’s plan to supercharge data centres across the country. So what’s he going to go and say to the UN?

“He doesn’t have a pathway through the parliament, let alone the UN, for his plan.”

He labelled US tech companies as “a bunch of US vampire tech companies” trying to “suck down” data, water, and power from Australia as they “try and escape from the chaos of the Trump regime”.

Music licensing expert Dean Ormston said while the big tech companies were in the ear of the Australian Government, they had failed to consult with the industry.

“Since generative AI models became publicly available at the end of 2022, no multinational AI platform operating in Australia has approached us to discuss how a licence for training would work. Not one enquiry in nearly four years,” the APRA AMCOS boss said.

“Every other ingredient in these products is paid for at market rates, without complaint.

“They pay Nvidia for the chips. They pay for the power, the water, the land and the construction. They pay their engineers, and they pay their army of lawyers and lobbyists.

“Creative work is the only ingredient they refuse to pay for, and it is the one ingredient without which none of it functions.”