Every time you ask an AI to write a song, generate a script, or mimic a creative style, there's a good chance it learned how to do that by consuming someone's life's work, without asking, without paying, and without them ever knowing. Holly Rankin, the artist behind Jack River and founder of cultural strategy company Sentiment Agency, has spent the last few years making sure that fact doesn't quietly disappear into the fine print. She's testified before Australian Parliament, rallied creative industries, and become one of the most articulate voices in the fight to ensure the AI economy doesn't get built on the back of stolen human culture.

In this episode, Holly and Georgie get into all of it, the staggering labour that goes into making a single song, why the "it's too complicated to license" argument from Big Tech is a convenient myth, and what the Anthropic book piracy settlement really signals about where this is all heading. They talk about the viral Briggs Senate moment, why Spotify and YouTube are quietly backing creators, and what emerging attribution technology could mean for a fairer future. But underneath the policy detail is a bigger question Holly keeps returning to: if we let machines consume and replicate everything that makes us human, what exactly are we left with?