Union IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw had told ET last week that the government is looking at introducing such an AI law.
Legal experts said it is a “timely” move amid rapid expansion of AI-generated content that could significantly impact publishing industry and has led to concerns over copyright infringements.
“Specific legislation on this issue will help India find the appropriate balance between enabling technology innovation (through AI) while valuing and protecting news reporting, and artistic innovation,” said Arun Prabhu, partner and head – technology & telecommunication at law firm Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas.
Regulating the use of news and content by AI companies is “a global regulatory and policy hotspot” and India’s law can address whether AI platforms can circumvent paywalls, what is considered ‘fair’ use, how direct and indirect benefits should be shared, credit and attribution, etc., Prabhu told ET.
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Vaishnaw had told ET that the government through the new law seeks to secure the rights and sharing of the proceeds among news publishers, content creators and AI-enabled technologies, “while keeping good space for innovation”. The proposed law could be in the form of separate legislation or part of the Digital India Bill that will replace the 24-year-old IT Act, he had said.
Ranjana Adhikari, partner at IndusLaw, said, “The interface of generative AI models with copyright law is a recent phenomenon and Indian jurisprudence has not evolved sufficiently to address the issue.”
She noted that globally, multiple suits have been instituted before courts by prominent publishers specifically on this issue. A case in point is the New York Times vs OpenAI case where adjudication is awaited.
The recently passed EU AI Act requires AI models to comply with EU copyright law and also publish detailed summaries of the content used for training. “In my view, any future Indian law (whether as a part of the Digital India Bill or a standalone statute), which attempts to safeguard the IP and commercial interest of publishers in the age of AI, will have to be preceded by an extensive exercise which firstly identifies the various ways in which AI models use existing copyrighted material for their training and secondly analyses how much of such use legitimately falls within the domain of infringement,” Adhikari said.
