Australian composers say firms are pushing musicians to re-record AI songs so they can copyright them

Australian ad agencies are asking composers to recreate AI-generated tracks so their clients can secure the copyright. That’s Antony Partos, the composer behind Redfern Now, Rake and The Slap, and Nigel Westlake, who scored Babe, speaking to The Australian Financial Review on November 8, 2026.

Both composers want something else from the Albanese government too: payment for the AI training that has already happened. Partos told the AFR that a licence “needs to be set up through the collecting societies and then have that apply retrospectively.”

The re-record request exists because only human-made works get copyright in Australia. A legal analysis by the International Bar Association reads Australian court rulings the same way, so a track that comes straight out of an AI tool gives the client no copyright to claim.

How Australian ad agencies ask composers to re-record AI-generated tracks

Partos says the AI demo is where it starts. “I can see the attraction of doing AI prompts to quickly generate tracks and different ideas and different styles,” he told the AFR. A track the AI makes in a minute takes his team “at least a couple of days to a week to turn around.”

The trouble starts once the agency pitches that demo and the client gets used to it. Then the agency calls a composer:

“The issue is when an agency comes to us and says, ‘We’ve got this work, it’s AI, the client signed off on it. Can you please copy it?’”

The composer is the one left holding the risk. Partos said the request puts composers “in an unenviable position … [because] the liability will then rest with us.”

His company, Sonar Music, turns these jobs down and has lost work because of it. Partos said other composers don’t have the luxury of saying no.

He first raised these requests in October, when he launched the Human Made campaign for the Australian Guild of Screen Composers. That same night in Brisbane, October 28, he won Best Music for a Television Drama for The Artful Dodger at the Screen Music Awards and used the win to push the campaign, IT Brief reported.

So far that’s one composer’s view. Westlake’s is more personal.

Why Nigel Westlake says he would take legal action over AI copies of his music

Westlake has scored films including Babe and The Nugget, and his official bio lists 2 ARIA Awards and 15 APRA awards. He told the AFR he found more than 180 of his works in a database used to train AI models, and one of them is a requiem for his son, who died aged 21.

He says he often hears his own signature in ad music he had nothing to do with. He won’t give AI labs permission to use his work.

Asked whether he’d take legal action against someone who claimed copyright over AI music that infringed his works, Westlake said “absolutely”. “That potentially opens up a path for litigation, I would have thought,” he added.

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These are all issues that three months ago I wasn't even thinking about.

He isn’t the only Australian writer whose catalogue is already in training sets. ICMP told the government in October that Kylie Minogue and Nick Cave songs are in AI training data too.

Where the Albanese government’s AI copyright overhaul stands in November 2026

Partos aimed his retrospective licence at the Albanese government’s copyright overhaul. The AFR reports the changes would make it easier for AI labs to license work for training in Australia.

Anthropic has floated a second home for its AI training in Australia if the rules change, which would make Australia the only country outside the US training its frontier models. Anthropic and OpenAI already made their case to MPs, which I covered when ARIA’s Annabelle Herd answered them.

According to the AFR, the government is weighing 3 pieces:

• A model that gives rights holders like music publishers and media outlets a stronger hand in negotiating deals directly, while making sure smaller rights holders, the “long tail”, get paid too.
• A rule forcing AI companies to disclose what content they trained on.
• A small claims process, so rights holders don’t have to sue in the Federal Court to enforce their copyright.

Albanese said in August he expected the legislation by the end of the year. Sources told the AFR that doesn’t mean it will be made public, and he could announce the key planks first and hold the bill until the new year.

APRA AMCOS is about to launch a major campaign on the changes, the AFR reports. The rest of the industry is already lined up: IFPI’s Victoria Oakley warned Australia not to become the AI copyright ‘weakest link’, and an ARIA poll found 78% of Australians want AI companies to keep asking permission.