Are bloggers the same as writers, journalists, under the Australian AI framework?

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Are bloggers the same as writers, journalists, under the Australian AI framework?

21 July 2026

Last week the Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese unveiled his government’s AI strategy. Part of the proposed framework includes a provision to ensure Australian writers, musicians, artists, and journalists, are paid in the event their work is used in the development of AI agents.

This is as it should be. Anyone else who wants to access copyrighted material needs to pay. It should be no different for the big tech, and AI, companies.

As someone who writes predominately online, a blogger, I see myself as either a writer and/or a journalist, in terms of this framework. I know it sound like I’m being pedantic, and surely most people would assume a blogger is regarded as a writer or a journalist.

But is that the way I would actually be viewed under the proposed AI framework? Albanese, after all, made no mention of bloggers, or other online content creators.

Of course, the Prime Minister’s speech was a statement of policy intention, and the finer details, will, I assume, come later as the AI strategy is devised.

The matter is of interest though, as I’m one of who-knows-how-many Australian bloggers whose writings have been harvested in recent years, most likely by AI companies. Would bloggers also be subject to the provisions being proposed for writers, musicians, artists, and journalists?

Or does the exclusively digital nature of a blogger’s work somehow diminish its stature? Will any sort of payment for work copied or used by AI companies only apply to mediums that exist firstly in a physical form, such as books or paintings?

These are mediums that can be digitised (somehow), making them attractive fodder for knowledge hungry AI agents, but does their physical form still give them precedence?

To be clear, I’m not talking about copyright. Any work created in Australia is protected by copyright laws, including that of bloggers. Generally for copyright to apply, a work must be created by a person, be original, and be “fixed”, that is, the work must exist in a tangible form.

This includes content on a web page. Australian bloggers are covered then by copyright. Regardless of whether anyone actually takes notice.

But while Australian copyright laws apply to “people who express original ideas and information in certain forms“, the proposed AI strategy, based on what we know at present, seems far more specific. Writers, musicians, artists, and journalists. Not bloggers, or other content creators working online.

Time will tell though whether Albanese was being specific or not.

As I wrote last week, given the amount of scraping and copying that has already occurred, a large number of Australian creatives will have already lost out, in terms of compensation.

It’s my feeling then any payments that AI companies may be required to make, will only apply to works created after any legislation is enacted. Anything else could be complicated to say the least.

Again though, time will tell.

AI here to stay, accept it, says Australian government, vows artist copyright protection

17 July 2026

Anthony Albanese, the Australian Prime Minister, says he wants to make Australia an “attractive destination” for investment in AI development, during a speech delivered on Wednesday.

Albanese also wants to balance the opportunities and risks presented by the technologies, particularly concerns that AI uptake will result in widespread job losses.

AI will take away jobs, he said, but will also create new and different lines of work.

Among proposals is a coordinated national framework, rather than a state-by-state approach, that will oversee matters including the construction of AI data centres.

In short, data centres will be required to generate their own power, by way of renewable energy sources, and minimise water consumption.

During his speech, Albanese also gave an undertaking to protect the intellectual property of Australian writers, musicians, artists and journalists:

An artist’s creative endeavour is their work and their property. No company should use Australian books, music, art or news to build or train AI without the artist’s control. That includes the artist’s control of the price and value of their work. Anything less, is theft.

These are words Australian artists and creatives wanted to hear.

Protections will doubtless be included in upcoming legislation, but after rampant marauding of creative material by AI scraper bots in recent years, the move might come too late.

The proposed laws might protect work created in the future, but what of copyrighted content that has already been copied, and digested, by AI agents?

Will AI companies who used creative work in the past be required to offer retrospective remuneration? Will these entities, many of whom are based outside Australia, be the slightest bit concerned by these proposals?

Australian government proposes AI national framework, standards

16 July 2026

Clare Armstrong, writing for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC):

Australia will seek to harness the benefits of artificial intelligence without losing control of it by tackling challenges such as data centres, copyright, and jobs through a new national framework.

Buoyed, no doubt, by the… success of the social media ban for Australians aged under sixteen, the Australian government is setting its sights on AI.

But I shouldn’t be so cynical.

An Office of AI will be established within the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, and will be tasked with drafting standards guiding development and deployment of the technologies.

Use the AI compass to chart your AI archetype

7 July 2026

Find out where you sit on the AI compass, which is a little similar to the vote compass.

There are thirty AI classifications including sceptic, Luddite, conscientious objector, doomsday prepper, founder, and prophet. Each has a patron saint. Mine is Amanda Askell, though I’m not entirely sure I agree with my archetype, “The True Believer”, but who knows.

Simon Willison — should we dub him Mr AI? — is, according to the compass, “The Garage Tinkerer”, whose patron saint is none other than… Simon Willison. What are the chances?

Australian authors, songwriters, musicians demand payment from AI companies

7 July 2026

Individuals, educational institutions, and other organisations have to make payment in some form or other to access the work of writers, musicians, artists, and other creatives.

It seems like a naive question, but why should it be any different for the tech companies who are presently helping themselves to whatever material they can get their hands on, so as to train their AI agents? Particularly if the same tech companies expect users to pay to access their AI products.

Of course all writers, artists, musicians, etc, wherever they are, should be receiving compensation if any of their work is being used to train AI agents.

Chloe VS History: time travel that delivers a glimpse of the future

2 July 2026

Perhaps we see something of the future when we look to the past.

Chloe VS History, a YouTube channel, presents significant chapters of our history, hosted by a buoyant young woman named Chloe, a would-be time traveller, and seen through the lens of what is presumably a smartphone.

While it’s moot point, the smartphone, or whatever recording device Chloe uses, seems to go unnoticed by the multitudes of people she encounters. Be that Ancient Rome, on board the Titanic, or in Tudor age London, capital of the United Kingdom, among other places. Could it be the locals — where there are people present — think she is holding a hand mirror of some sort?

Regardless, Chloe’s enthusiasm for her subject matter is infectious. I studied history in my final year of high-school, and have the feeling the class would have been at least ten times more engaged, if we’d had the option to learn about historical events in this fashion.

The concept, the brainchild of British content creator Jonathan Laramy, may not be entirely unique, there’s a lot to say about the execution. To date, only five “full-length” features have been produced, though there are nearly forty “short” videos.

Of course, just about all of what we see in the Chloe VS History series, including Chloe herself, is created using AI powered applications. And while a substantial amount of research also goes into each production, I’ll take a punt that AI is only doing some of this work.

The educational merits of resources like this are obvious. And not just for history either, but other — sometimes not so exciting — subjects on a school’s curriculum also.

So far, there are only five in-depth Chloe VS History features, but doubtless the number will grow, given there’s a lot of history to explore from across the globe.

I don’t know a whole lot about reality headsets, such as, for instance, Apple’s Vision Pro, but I wonder what the experience of viewing these sorts of videos on reality headset devices would be like. Immersive, to say the least, if device support is available.

AI does not so much take work away as it changes the way we work

30 June 2026

CJ Chilvers:

Before influencers, there were bloggers. Before bloggers, there were TV stars, rock stars, and movie stars. Call them whatever you want, but individuals have always been the drivers of engagement and trust.

This is a point Alex Cowen reiterated in a recent talk given in the UK. It seems to me you don’t so much need a great of knowledge of AI — hard to gain when the technology is ever evolving — than you do a distinct personal brand. In whatever your field of endeavour is.

Microsoft wants users to be addicted to Scout, their AI personal assistant

6 June 2026

Jason Koebler, and Emanuel Maiberg, writing for 404 Media:

An internal Microsoft strategy document says that the plan for its just-announced “Scout” personal assistant AI is to “make people addicted” to the tool before rolling out additional functionality, 404 Media has learned. “Three phases from addictive app to agentic platform,” the documentation.

Is anyone surprised? The big tech company has long been in the business of building not so much addiction, but rather dependency, on their products.

The Windows operating system (OS) started out, possibly, once, a long time ago, as a good OS. Little by little though, users became ever more addicted/dependent on the OS, through numerous lock-ins and lock-outs. Only when Windows 11 arrived did people realise just how dependent, and trapped, they’d become.

DuckDuckGo sees user uptick following Google plans for an AI search box

4 June 2026

Search engine DuckDuckGo has experienced a noticeable surge in users in recent weeks, says Rebecca Bellan, writing for TechCrunch.

Many of these new arrivals are concerned about Google’s proposals to significantly change its search experience, through the use of AI, something I think is being called AI Mode.

DuckDuckGo said U.S. app installs went up 18.1% week-over-week on average during the May 20 to May 25 period, compared to May 13 to May 18. The company said that growth was sustained for six consecutive days and peaked at 30.5% on May 25. On iOS, the rate of install is even higher, with week-over-week growth hitting a 33% average, peaking at 69.9%.

In addition to its regular search engine, DuckDuckGo also offers a completely AI-free search option.

AI: you cannot live with it, you cannot live without it

1 June 2026

Daniel Jalkut:

My take on AI is, essentially, everybody who’s against it is too against it and everybody who’s for it is too for it.

From where I sit, somewhere in the middle of this, that’s the way it looks.

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