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I am sorry to the person who finds my intros cringey - my older brothers would agree with you!
I’ve got 10 seconds
The quote: “It's going to get harder and harder for us to discern the truth… I would like to avoid being in a tampon commercial 20 years after my death.” George Clooney speaking to media at the Venice Film Festival about the rise of generative AI.
The stat: 20 million. The number of children aged 12 to 17, across 21 countries, who experienced online sexual exploitation and abuse across a single year, according to the UN children’s agency UNICEF.
The big question:
Yesterday’s results: 36% of you said they’re saving money, 39% breaking even, and 25% falling behind. Thanks for voting - your responses inform TDA's journalism and research. [2,670 votes].
I’ve got 30 seconds
Some headlines from this morning:
Legendary feminist activist and journalist Gloria Steinem has died aged 92, according to a statement on Instagram from her foundation. Steinem was one of the leading voices of the feminist movement from the 1970s onwards. She co-founded the National Women’s Political Caucus in the U.S, helping women get elected to political office. In her career as a journalist and writer, Steinem went undercover at the Playboy Club and wrote an exposé about her experience as a ‘bunny’, founded the feminist magazine Ms., and published several books.
Telstra has released the results of an independent investigation into its outage in early July, which left thousands of Australians unable to make calls or access data. It found Telstra failed to sufficiently fund the system behind a major nationwide network failure, despite its potential to catastrophically impact services. The two key technicians who implemented the change behind the failure had been sent home on a mandatory rest break when it occurred and were not called back to help rectify the outage until hours later. A Telstra spokesperson said such rest breaks were standard practice for those working overnight.
Together with AAP.
I’ve got 1 minute
Two of the world’s largest music publishers are suing Anthropic, the company behind the AI system Claude, for allegedly stealing copyrighted works.
Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell are among a group suing the AI company, its co-founder and CEO Dario Amodei and co-founder Benjamin Mann.
Sony and Warner allege Anthropic conducted a “brazen campaign of illegally torrenting, scraping, and downloading” the sheet music and lyrics to songs including ‘Uptown Funk’ and ‘Cruel Summer’ to train Claude.
Editorial note: The Daily Aus has had commercial partnerships with both Anthropic and Warner. Partnering with a range of brands keeps our content free for you. Anthropic and Warner have no involvement in, or influence over, our editorial content, including this piece.
Background
Claude is a large language model (LLM), trained by processing massive amounts of text to learn how to generate human-like language. To obtain this text, AI companies have scraped websites and large collections of books and articles.
The legality of these practices is disputed. Anthropic and other AI companies have faced lawsuits accusing them of illegally obtaining copyrighted material.
The lawsuit
Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell allege Mann personally torrented millions of pirated books at Amodei’s direction, of which hundreds contained copyrighted lyrics and sheet music.
They allege Anthropic scraped lyrics from websites, removed songwriter credits, and created models that reproduce their lyrics word-for-word or closely mirror them.
The songs allegedly stolen by Anthropic include ‘Uptown Funk’, ‘Cruel Summer’, ‘Hallelujah’, ‘Eye of the Tiger’, and ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You’.
The publishers are seeking damages of up to $US150,000 ($AU210,000) per song and up to $US25,000 ($AU35,000) each time songwriter credits were removed. With tens of thousands of songs allegedly stolen, the total damages could be in the billions of dollars.
TDA reached out to Anthropic, which said: “We disagree with the publishers’ claims and we intend to defend ourselves robustly in court.”
Other lawsuits
In September 2025, Anthropic agreed to a $US1.5 billion ($AU2.1 billion) settlement with authors whose works were pirated.
It was the largest copyright settlement in U.S. history and received final court approval in July 2026.
The judge in that case ruled that while training AI on lawfully obtained text could be legal, obtaining it through piracy was not.
Reporting by Adam Wan.
Quick hits
🎧 On today’s TDA podcast, multimedia journo Elliot explains why NSW Police bodycam footage from a protest has been referred to authorities. Listen or watch on Apple here, Spotify here, or YouTube here.
🌞 Sign up to TDA Good News here for a wrap of all the good news from this week in your inbox on Sunday morning.
I’ve got 2 minutes
After about a month of relative peace, the U.S. and Iran have exchanged their heaviest fire since July this week.
On Tuesday, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said it struck Iranian military infrastructure.
Iran fired missiles and drones back at U.S. bases in Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Iraq.
Background
The war began on 28 February, when the U.S. and Israel launched joint strikes on Iran, killing the Iranian regime’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
U.S. President Donald Trump said the strikes were aimed at ending Iran’s nuclear program, stopping it from striking its neighbours, and creating conditions for Iranians to topple their government.
Iran struck back against Israel, U.S. bases in the region, and other countries on the Persian Gulf.
A peace deal was signed on 17 June, but hostilities resumed in mid-July.
Strait of Hormuz
The Strait of Hormuz is a narrow waterway between Iran and Oman that carried roughly 20% of the world’s oil a day before the war, plus a similar share of its gas.
In May, Iran created its own authority to run the Strait, saying no ship could pass without an Iranian-issued permit.
The U.S. rejects that. It has declared itself the “guardian” of the Strait, escorts ships through, and blockades Iranian ports.
New strikes
CENTCOM says Tuesday’s strikes followed attempted attacks by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a paramilitary organisation under the regime, on commercial shipping in the Strait and U.S. troops.
Trump gave a different reason in a post to his social media platform Truth Social, saying they were retaliation for Iran’s “failed attempt at adding sea mines to the Strait”.
Iran says it is defending its own waters, and that the U.S. strikes on Tuesday killed 18 people and injured 108.
State media reports a strike hit a wedding at a home in the city of Sirik, killing four people, including a four-year-old, with dozens wounded. Reuters said it could not independently verify the wedding strike.
CENTCOM told the BBC it was aware of the reports which it said “originated from Iranian state media,” and said the U.S. never targets civilians.
Regional impact
Iran says its goal now is to push U.S. forces out of long-held bases across the Middle East. Its military command warned that any country cooperating with the U.S. “must accept its dangerous consequences”.
Kuwait said an Iranian drone struck a residential complex, causing damage but no injuries.
Iran also said it killed U.S. personnel in Jordan and Iraq. U.S. officials said there were no reports of casualties.
What’s next?
Speaking to reporters at the White House overnight, Trump said the U.S. has “almost total control of the Hormuz Strait” and that Iran’s economy is collapsing.
He said the U.S. is no longer seeking a long-standing agreement with Iran.
Iran’s President, Masoud Pezeshkian, says Iran will return to the terms of the June deal if the U.S. does.
Reporting by Sam Koslowski.
A message from Specsavers
Watery eyes one minute, dry and itchy the next - plus a weird new sensitivity to light? Your eyes might be trying to tell you something.
According to Specsavers, these are all common symptoms of computer eye strain, and while the condition is usually not serious, there's no reason to put up with the discomfort.
Rest your eyes regularly by looking away from your screen and focusing on something in the distance, and if the symptoms persist, an optometrist can help identify the cause and rule out any underlying eye health issues. Book an eye test at your local Specsavers or online via the link below.
Give me some good news
Instagram: @missleahstewart
Shark attack survivor Leah Stewart has reunited with the lifeguards who helped pull her from the water and gave her CPR.
Stewart was attacked while swimming at Coogee Beach in June. In a post to Instagram, Stewart, who lost an arm to the shark, said: “Last time we met they were performing CPR and breathing for me, this time we had a big hug”.
Reporting by Lucy Tassell.
TDA titbit
The Netherlands’ central bank has moved 86 tonnes of gold bars out of the U.S. and Canada, saying the move is due to “increasing geopolitical unrest”.
It’s moving the gold to London, where the bank says it’ll have better access if it ever needs to sell the bars quickly.
The move comes amid high tensions between Canada and the U.S, which have been at odds since Donald Trump returned to office and began threatening to make Canada the 51st state.
Reporting by Lucy Tassell.
TDA asks
