“It’s f***ing bad manners” Bernard Fanning on AI robbing Australian music
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What personal experiences connect Australians to Powderfinger's music?
For generations of Australians, powder finger songs are tied to first loves, long drives, share houses, breakups, and summers that still feel close enough to touch. They were written by people, played by a band, and carried by listeners into their own lives. Now, that music has been found inside the machinery of artificial intelligence, harvested into vast data sets without permission and without payment. At the same time, the federal government is fending off whistleblower claims of a dirty deal with tech giants that would see AI access to Australian art in exchange for billions of dollars of investment. I'm Daniel James and you're listening to 7am. Today, Bernard Fanning on what happens when machines are trained on our songs and who gets to tell Australian stories, us or AI?
It's Monday, July 6. Bernard Fanning, welcome to 7am. For a whole generation of Australians, Powderfinger was the soundtrack of their youth. What did it feel like to hear that that soundtrack, the band's entire original catalogue, had been used to train artificial intelligence without your consent?
Well, it feels like you've been robbed, I guess. It's a violation. I mean, I'm not surprised. I wasn't surprised, to be honest. I mean, there's not many lengths that these tech companies won't go to to further their own agenda. So... Yeah, violated, I guess.
It's very easy just to think of a catalog as a catalog, but can you give us some sort of idea of the years and the effort that went into creating that catalog to have it so quickly hoovered up by AI?
Yeah, so I had a look at that Atlantic site the other day, which lists what's been used. And I think it was around 150 or 155 Powderfinger songs and then 55 of mine, my own solo songs. So that's over, I don't know, seven or eight albums from Powderfinger, which were kind of released between 1994 and 2009, I think.
How is AI using Australian music without consent?
Plus I've made four or five albums myself, maybe more, six. So that's... You know, 30 years of work, really. I mean, I haven't only written 200 songs in 30 years. I've probably written 1,000 songs, but that's the ones that have been released and that were, you know, available to be scraped.
You're part of a group of Australian artists who are speaking out after a whistleblower claimed that the federal government is considering doing a deal to let AR companies train on Australian copyright material like your music in exchange for these tech giants investing billions of dollars into data centers and hundreds of millions of dollars into a fund for artists. David Pocock has labeled it as the ultimate dirty deal.
When I raised this in the Senate, the minister accused me of being reckless. He went on a personal attack, but didn't actually refute the claim, wouldn't rule it out.
What concerns are raised about the government's potential deal with tech giants?
And I'm really concerned.
What do you think about it? Yeah, I agree with him. The thing that I don't understand about it is that it's even possible. We as artists have entered into these agreements with labels or publishers or whatnot and under those terms and for that to then be just undermined by changing legislation. It seems absurd to me. I can't understand why it's even under consideration, especially given the current federal government has made a big deal about what great supporters of the arts they are. Our prime minister's a DJ and our arts minister is a frequent attender of gigs of Australian bands and whatnot. So I'm a little confused by it, to be honest, and I don't really understand how it's even a consideration, but the fact that it is means that it's kind of incumbent on us to speak out about it and make people aware of it.
It would be a huge turnaround from the government, which just last year ruled out an exemption for data mining like this after it copped criticism from the arts community.
I don't think at the moment, you know, AI understands what a lounge room in Shepparton, Victoria smells like. It's like the innate human quality of the art and the authenticity that... you know we strive to create that our audience strives for and expects uh from us as artists and you know quite simply all we're trying to do is future proof that to make sure we have how disappointed were you to hear that the question marks around this issue are still there when you thought like the rest of us thought that this issue was resolved well i'm very disappointed i mean
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What personal experiences connect Australians to Powderfinger's music?
0:03–2:30
2
How is AI using Australian music without consent?
2:30–3:26
3
What concerns are raised about the government's potential deal with tech giants?
3:26–8:31
4
How does Bernard Fanning feel about his music being used to train AI?
8:31–18:01