THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT'S recent three-day economic reform roundtable concluded with unions and tech companies reportedly exploring a model for compensating creators for AI training data. It ensures that the use of artworks, whether for publication, reproduction, or AI training, requires permission and payment. Artists repeatedly emphasised that AI scraping without permission is not innovation, it is exploitation. What artists reject is a system that extracts their work without permission, under the guise of innovation. Protections must include transparent AI training datasets, meaningful consent processes, and clear avenues for attribution and compensation.