Australian musicians alarmed after Nick Cave, Kylie and many more found in AI training dataset
A dataset search tool reveals that millions of creative works by Australian artists, including Kylie Minogue and Nick Cave, have been scraped from the internet to train artificial intelligence, prompting outrage over copyright infringement.
Prominent Australian musicians, including Paul Dempsey, Bernard Fanning, Kylie Minogue, Nick Cave, and Jimmy Barnes, have expressed outrage after discovering their original songs are included in datasets used to train artificial intelligence.
The Atlantic's dataset search tool reveals that millions of creative works have been scraped from the internet to train the disruptive technology. The tool includes a vast catalogue of Australian artists' work, from Kylie Minogue's hits to novels by Thomas Keneally and Peter Carey.
Paul Dempsey, who had long suspected his music was being used without permission, found the entire catalogue of his band Something For Kate and his solo work in the search tool. "It's frustrating. Every contract I've ever negotiated is now rendered useless. Artists' ability to negotiate fair terms is being ripped away," he said.
Bernard Fanning argued that using original songs to produce AI-generated content is dehumanising. "Do we want robots telling our stories? Robots aren't alive; they just aggregate – and that idea sucks," he said.
Songwriter Darren Hayes, who found his entire 30-year career output in the datasets, took to Instagram to express his fury. "I feel violated – all my blood, sweat and tears have been stolen and served up to software that spits out crap," he wrote.
Music licensing organisation APRA AMCOS, representing 128,000 members in Australasia, called the datasets proof of theft of creative work. CEO Dean Ormston criticised tech platforms for not coming to the table to negotiate payment.
Australia's intellectual property laws require permission and agreed terms before copyright works are used, but the IT industry has pushed for text and data mining exemptions. In August 2025, the Productivity Commission proposed changes that would legalise AI use without payment, but the federal government ruled them out in October.
Dempsey, currently on tour in Australia, emphasised that true artistic expression comes from human experience, not artificial intelligence.
