The data miners take an L

Tim Burrowes

October 27, 2025 4:20

Scott Farquhar made the data mining case badly on 7.30

It took three nervous months, but last night came news of a rare victory for the home team against the digital giants.

Despite what had appeared to be a sympathetic ear from the Productivity Commission, the tech lobby’s push to introduce a special exemption in Australian copyright law, to allow AI systems to scrape content without paying for it has been ruled out by the government.

Happily, we may never know how close the proposal was to getting up.

The Productivity Commission started the hare running in its report Harnessing Data and Digital Technology published at the beginning of August.

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Tim Burrowes

Tim Burrowes is the publisher of Mumbrella and Unmade. He co-founded Mumbrella in 2008 and sister title Unmade in 2021. He's worked in the UK, Middle East, Asia & Australia and has specialised in writing about the communications world for the last 25 years. He wrote the book Media Unmade, published in 2021, and became the presenter of MediaLand on ABC Radio National in 2025.