‘Getting This Right Means Everyone Wins’: Annabelle Herd Addresses AI Fight In 2026 ARIA Hall of Fame Speech
Categoria: Musica
“Our opportunity to shape how AI influences music and what Australian music looks like for generations to come relies on us all getting it right in this regulatory and political moment,” Herd remarked.
Por Billboard | 12/06/2026
A Hall of Fame celebration is typically a chance to bury hatchets, to raise a toast, and to remember the tunes and artists that turned you on during the formative years. When ARIA inducted six acts into its Hall of Fame on Thursday evening, June 11, the occasion presented a the industry with a chance to take stock, and identify the battles that lay ahead. Specifically, artificial intelligence and its profound threat (and opportunity) to the creative community. At the tail-end of 2025, Australia’s Productivity Commission completed a year-long inquiry with the publication of its final report on Harnessing data and digital technology. In it, the Commission concluded it would be “premature to make changes to Australia’s copyright laws,” despite lobby efforts from big tech. That followed Attorney-General Michelle Rowland ’s announcement that the federal government wouldn’t water-down existing copyright protections, essentially shutting down the creative sectors’ concerns that an exemption would be carved out for text and data mining (TDM). The music industry shifted into gear, as the likes of ARIA Award winners Missy Higgins and The Presets’ Julian Hamilton, and Midnight Oil frontman and former Labor frontbencher Peter Garrett, and 2026 ARIA Hall of Fame inductee Kate Ceberano stepped up to advocate for rights holders. “Our opportunity to shape how AI influences music and what Australian music looks like for generations to come relies on us all getting it right in this regulatory and political moment,” ARIA CEO Annabelle Herd remarked at the top of the 2026 ARIA Hall of Fame. “Getting this right means everyone wins,” she added, pointing to artists and rightsholders, tech platforms, consumers, music fans, and the Australian economy. AI, and the conversation around it, is everywhere right now. Just this week, the trade body clarified its position on AI generated music ahead of the 2026 ARIA Awards. Going forward, “recordings/items that incorporate elements of Artificial Intelligence (AI) may be submitted for entry, but only if a human is the primary creator of such recording/item and the human contribution is substantial and meaningful,” reads the updated ARIAs guidelines. AI cannot be the sole or central element of any recording/item that is submitted for entries” and any AI services or tools used to assist in the creation of any potential nominees “must be a properly authorized and lawful service/tool.” The industry will be like a dog with a bone on AI, Herd insists. It won’t give up. “Our opportunity to shape how AI influences music and what Australian music looks like for generations to come relies on us all getting it right in this regulatory and political moment,” she said during her comments at the top of the HoF. Read Herd’s opening address at the ARIA Hall of Fame 2026: View this post on Instagram Good evening, and welcome to The ARIA Hall of Fame 2026 Special Event. I want to thank Binowee for that beautiful Welcome and pay my respects t