Severity moderate: Other parties' data or systems were touched, and a source states how far it reached. The model reproduced lyrics of protected works belonging to third-party artists, a bounded scope of affected rights holders.
Earliest source we hold 2026-10-19
Google's Gemini was shown by the International Confederation of Music Publishers, in evidence given to Guardian Australia, to reproduce lyrics by Australian artists including Kylie Minogue, G-Flip and Nick Cave. The ICMP linked the output to an AI training dataset of more than 12m songs pulled from YouTube videos. Google was approached for comment; the ICMP pressed Australia not to weaken copyright law.
Risk grouping: Misuse by its own users
Who caused it
A person or organisation “in evidence provided exclusively to Guardian Australia, ICMP showed Google’s Gemini was able to reproduce lyrics from Australian artists including Kylie Minogue, G-Flip and Nick Cave.”source
Intended or not
Not intended “in evidence provided exclusively to Guardian Australia, ICMP showed Google’s Gemini was able to reproduce lyrics from Australian artists including Kylie Minogue, G-Flip and Nick Cave.”source
Before or after release
Before release “A key claim of the AI industry is that its models are not trained on Australian content due to copyright rules.”source
The AI's part
Caused it “ICMP showed Google’s Gemini was able to reproduce lyrics from Australian artists including Kylie Minogue, G-Flip and Nick Cave.”source
The story
1 · What it was doingGoogle's Gemini model was trained on music, including a dataset of more than 12m songs pulled from YouTube videos, and was shown to reproduce lyrics from Australian artists.
2 · What went wrongThe model reproduced lyrics from Australian artists, which the music rights body says amounts to training on and outputting copyrighted works without compensation.
3 · What it reached or didThe output reproduced lyrics of Kylie Minogue, G-Flip and Nick Cave; the training data included tracks from Minogue, Cave and Hilltop Hoods.
4 · How it was caughtThe International Confederation of Music Publishers produced evidence to Guardian Australia showing Gemini could reproduce the lyrics.
5 · What was doneGoogle was approached for comment; the ICMP is pressing Australia not to weaken copyright law, and Guardian Australia urged that training require rights holders' explicit prior authorisation.
D inferred by us from the described behaviour, reason shown
Where its input came from
AI training dataset of more than 12m songs pulled from YouTube videos
C one secondary source states it
What went wrong
copyright or IP violation
D inferred by us from the described behaviour, reason shown
AI agent
no AI agent acted
D inferred by us from the described behaviour, reason shown
Impact
Severity
moderate
D inferred by us from the described behaviour, reason shown
Kind of harm
intellectual property
D inferred by us from the described behaviour, reason shown
Who was affected
Australian artists including Kylie Minogue, G-Flip, Nick Cave and Hilltop Hoods
C one secondary source states it
Why this severity
Other parties' data or systems were touched, and a source states how far it reached. The model reproduced lyrics of protected works belonging to third-party artists, a bounded scope of affected rights holders.
D inferred by us from the described behaviour, reason shown
LR-2026-0222 · version 3 · published 2026-10-25 after automatic checks; not yet checked field by field by a person · changes to this case · JSON