The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, is expected to deliver a major speech on Wednesday about the government’s plans for regulating and capitalising on the nascent technology. After abandoning the former industry minister Ed Husic’s vision for a dedicated AI act in favour of a hands-off approach to regulation, the government is reportedly set to pivot back to a more interventionist strategy.
Source: AI companies want to water down Australia’s copyright laws.
A coalition of record-label and artist groups is pushing streaming giants to label music generated with artificial intelligence, as the industry grapples with how AI is changing the business. The group said it plans to work with streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music to add labels on tracks indicating when AI was used to produce them. AI usage is flagged voluntarily by artists, record labels and distributors.
Source: Record Companies Push to Label AI Songs on Streaming Platforms
At issue is a potential European Union legislative proposal that would overturn the 2020 Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) decision in RAAP (Recorded Artists Actors Performers Ltd), which extended national-treatment protections to American recording artists and labels. The coalition says replacing those protections with a “material reciprocity” framework would codify discrimination against US creators and reduce the royalty payments American artists currently receive from Europe.
Source: EU proposal could cost American artists nearly $300M a year U.S. music coalition says
Publisher Hachette Book Group, Cengage Learning, and Elsevier, as well as author Scott Turow, are the named plaintiffs in the lawsuit, and the claims are being brought on behalf of themselves and a proposed class of authors and publishers. The suit follows an attempt by HBG and Cengage to join the Google Generative AI Copyright Litigation lawsuit first brought by a group of illustrators and writers in 2023, and which Google has been challenging the right for the publishers to participate.
Source: Publishers, Authors File Class Action Lawsuit Against Google
Swiss tech company Tribe Music Group has launched a catalogue-valuation tool called ValuePunks, available for artists and labels to use at no cost. The software measures data across every rights category — streaming, physical, sync, D2C and neighboring rights — and turns it into a catalogue assessment report. This is based on earnings data from more than 120,000 catalogue profiles collectively generating over €100m in annual royalties.
Source: ValuePunks offers free catalogue valuations to artists and indie labels
Netflix is further expanding the mix of content available on its platform through licensing partnerships with a range of top publishers, including Variety and other brands in Penske Media’s PMX unit, as well as BuzzFeed Studios, Condé Nast, Hearst Magazines, People Inc. and Tastemade. The deal calls for Netflix to carry a selection of top video content from the print and digital publishing groups starting Aug. 3.
Source: Netflix Sets Video Licensing Pact With Top Digital Publishers
In July 2025, Los Angeles photographer Jamie Nelson photographed Amy Taylor, the lead singer of Australian punk band Amyl and the Sniffers, for a Vogue Portugal editorial called “Champagne Problems.” But after Nelson began selling limited-edition art prints of the images on her website, Taylor filed suit, alleging that the images were only authorized for editorial use. Now, a year later, the two remain locked in litigation over the matter.
Source: Legal Battle Between a Punk Singer and a Photographer Heats Up
Le Monde has licensing deals with OpenAI, Perplexity and Meta, which allow its content to be used by large language model bots, such as ChatGPT, to answer users’ questions. This has led to “significant” new revenue both through payments from the LLMs and new subscribers coming in via the LLMs. But like many publishers Le Monde is also investing heavily in fighting off the ‘bad bots’ threatening its subscription and advertising revenue.
Source: How Le Monde is ‘fiercely defending’ journalism from bad bots
The New York Times, The New York Daily News and 15 other media organizations said in a federal court filing on Thursday that OpenAI was withholding evidence that could play a key role in high-profile lawsuits the companies filed against the artificial intelligence start-up. With their filing, the publishers called for legal sanctions against OpenAI, accusing the company of violating court rules and acting in bad faith during the litigation’s fact discovery phase.
Source: New York Times and Other Publishers Ask Court to Penalize OpenAI
The battle between Hollywood and generative artificial intelligence (AI) took an important procedural turn this month in one of the most closely watched AI copyright cases pending in the United States. While some headlines suggested that Disney and Universal were broadly ordered to disclose their own internal AI use, the actual discovery ruling is more nuanced. The court permitted only limited discovery into AI-related issues tied to market harm, while rejecting most of Midjourney’s broader requests regarding the studios’ internal AI development and use.
Source: AI Copyright Showdown: Can Hollywood Challenge AI While Using It?