Welcome, readers, to Afternoon Update.
Arts, creative and media groups have demanded the government rule out allowing big tech companies to take Australian content to train their artificial intelligence models, with concerns such a shift would “sell out” Australian workers and lead to “rampant theft” of intellectual property.
The Albanese government has said it has no plans to change copyright law, but any changes must consider effects on artists and news media. The opposition leader, Sussan Ley, has demanded that copyrighted material must not be used without compensation.
“It is not appropriate for big tech to steal the work of Australian artists, musicians, creators, news media, journalism, and use it for their own ends without paying for it,” Ley said on Wednesday.
Top news
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US research station staff evacuated from Antarctica in high-risk operation
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News Corp’s Australian newspaper revenue falls as CEO warns Trump of AI’s ‘art of the steal’
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Jeremy Rockliff reappointed as Tasmanian premier as Labor signals another no-confidence motion
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RFK Jr’s health department to halt $500m in mRNA vaccine research
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Chemical pollution a threat comparable to climate crisis, scientists warn
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Sydney man arrested for allegedly selling vapes ‘supercharged’ with dangerous synthetic opioid
In pictures
Weaving is central to cultural life in Samoa but the climate crisis is disrupting conditions needed for plants used to make the intricate mats. Lagipoiva Cherelle Jackson looks at how rising seas are threatening this crucial art.
What they said …
***
“There’s no need for it and there’s no place in the game for it. The last thing you want to see is kids who idolise these players start repeating those hands signs and thinking it’s cool.”
Lebanese-Australian former Tigers hooker Ben Elias expressed firm views after Wests Tigers players used a gesture offensive to some Lebanese-Australians in Sunday’s victory over Canterbury-Bankstown. The NRL let the players off with a warning after they used “the khawd” – but some Lebanese-Australians felt the incident had been blown out of proportion.
Full Story
The Descendants episode 2: the search for Tom Wills
For several years there have been suggestions that in the 1860s Tom Wills, Australia’s first sports hero and a founder of Australian rules football, may have taken part in the massacres of Gayiri people in central Queensland.
Now, in a Guardian Australia investigation, Indigenous affairs reporter Ella Archibald-Binge travels in search of the truth behind the allegations.
In this two-part special Full Story, she and Lorena Allam from UTS’s Jumbunna Institute discuss how families on both sides of the conflict are reckoning with the truth of their ancestors’ past.
Warning: This episode contains historical records that use racist and offensive language, and descriptions of events that will be distressing to some.
Listen to the episode here
Before bed read
“To develop cold symptoms, you need to be infected by a virus. There’s a reason that happens more in winter – and the answer hangs indoors, in the air.” For the latest Antiviral column, Donna Lu answers the big winter question: will going out underdressed in cold weather make me sick?
Daily word game
Today’s starter word is: COIN. You have five goes to get the longest word including the starter word. Play Wordiply.
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