David Stewart

Bennett

Appearing at 11.30-12.30PM

Deep Dive

SESSION DETAILS

“AI and Copyright: “The future is already here, just not evenly distributed”
On 13 August 2025 the Australian arts sector blasted the Federal government’s Productivity Commission’s proposal to permit technology companies to use copyright-protected material to train AIs as a “fair dealing”” exemption.

But in June 2025, a US court found that AI company Anthropic use of original books to train AIs was not an infringement of copyright. In the same month, Meta was found by a US judge not to have infringed copyright in books used to train AIs. And in the UK in July, Getty Images’ copyright claim against Stability AI fell apart over the course of the trial.

What is going on? Fresh(-ish) off a plane from an AI contracts drafting course in London, Dave Stewart breaks it down, and says why the risk of AI replacing creative jobs is over-hyped because recent AI advances are underwhelming.
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David Stewart is one of Australia’s leading intellectual property lawyers and is an Adjunct Professor at Murdoch University.

David has lectured at Murdoch University, the Australian Graduate School of Management in Hong Kong, Edith Cowan University, and in Phnom Penh for The Asia Foundation on the IP implications of Cambodia joining the World Trade Organisation.

David has written for or been covered by The Wall Street Journal, the South China Morning Post, the Australian Financial Review, The Guardian, and The West Australian newspapers.