{
  "id": 17615408,
  "title": "AI is stealing Indigenous Australian art and churning out ‘Temu slop’, artist says",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/11/01/ai-is-stealing-indigenous-australian-art-and-churning-out-temu-slop",
  "topic": "ai",
  "section": "AI",
  "published": "2026-11-01T14:00:13.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "The Guardian",
    "slug": "the-guardian",
    "url": "https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2026/nov/02/ai-stealing-indigenous-australian-art-temu-slop-artist-says-ntwnfb"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "National Gallery of Australia's First Nations advisory group chair Sally Scales claims that AI technology is stealing Indigenous Australian art and producing \"Temu slop\". Scales, who chairs the advisory group, believes the technology undermines the agency and authenticity of First Nations artists' work, amounting to a theft of cultural knowledge. Despite Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's pledge to protect Australian creatives from copyright theft, and Attorney-General Michelle Rowland stating there are \"no plans to weaken copyright protections\", AI has already been trained on the works of well-known Australian artists without compensation. Experts are particularly concerned about the risks to Indigenous cultural and intellectual property (ICIP) in an era where AI companies can easily gather any material found online, including songs and paintings containing sacred cultural knowledge. AI art has altered original pieces, removed artist names, and been sold, according to the peak body for Australian visual artists, causing \"cultural and economic harm\". Australian-style artwork can be found on sites like Temu, Shein and Amazon, often without proper attribution. This poses a significant challenge as one in five creators already struggle with copyright infringement, and this issue becomes even more complex when dealing with Indigenous artists due to their lack of control over ownership and respect for Aboriginal culture. Professor Kathy Bowrey, an intellectual property specialist from UNSW Law, points out that a corporate client can pay for an Aboriginal image once, then use AI to \"update\" or repurpose it without authorization, leaving the original artist without repeat business and competing against AI-generated works. The National Association for the Visual Arts (Nava) advocates for Indigenous data sovereignty, recognizing First Nations peoples' right to control their data, cultural material and knowledge. In a submission to a joint select committee inquiry on AI, Nava cited the work of Wuthathi and Meriam lawyer Terri Janke, who has documented AI scraping Indigenous art center websites, removing artists' names and altering their work. Janke has also warned of AI reproducing cultural knowledge without accuracy or appropriate use. Nava members have raised concerns about AI-generated 'Aboriginal-style' images and designs that imitate community-specific techniques, stories, motifs, and mark-making, presenting themselves as Indigenous or Indigenous-inspired work. Bowrey and her colleague, creative technologies expert Associate Professor Oliver Bown, have proposed a Copyright Plus framework, which would grant creators more power over their work by forcing AI companies to disclose data sources, giving artists the right to say no to having their work scraped or mimicked, imposing a levy on AI companies for a scheme to pay creative professionals and establish a cultural fund, and using takedown notices for fake content.",
  "summary": "Chair of National Gallery’s First Nations advisory group says the technology is undermining artists’ agency and the authenticity of their work Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast AI is taking First Nations art and turning it into “Temu slop”, the Pitjantjatjara artist Sally Scales has said. Scales, the chair of the National Gallery of Australia’s First Nations advisory…",
  "key_points": [
    "AI technology is stealing Indigenous Australian art and producing \"Temu slop\"",
    "Technology undermines First Nations artists' agency and authenticity",
    "AI has been trained on artists' works without compensation"
  ],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}