Four of Australia’s biggest media companies are getting together to negotiate for compensation from AI companies that use their content.

According to a (paywalled) report from Capital Brief, regional publisher Australian Community Media has teamed with broadcasters the ABC, SBS and Seven West in asking the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission for permission to negotiate collectively.

The new business website’s John Buckley quotes “sources familiar with the plans” that the companies are preparing to lodge an application.

The four would be seeking compensation for the use by global artificial intelligence firms such as OpenAI and Google, of their content in training large language models.

News Corp Australia and Nine Entertainment – which owns the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age – are not mentioned in the reports. Earlier News’ Dow Jones and New York Post were reported to be suing AI start-up Perplexity for “illegal copying”, accusing the company of “a brazen scheme to compete for readers while simultaneously freeriding on the valuable content the publishers produce”.