India’s Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal trade under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry has released for public consultation part one of a working paper discussing issues over using copyright protected creations to train artificial intelligence (AI) systems.
The department formed an eight-member committee to investigate AI and copyright law to produce the working paper, titled One Nation One License One Payment.
The committee was tasked to examine existing copyright legal frameworks, see if any changes were required and give recommendations. Concepts of blanket exemptions, text and data mining exceptions, opt-out rights, voluntary, zero price and extended collective licensing are outlined. The paper states that these concepts raise suitability issues, including people’s reduced desire for creativity due to undermined incentives and protection.
The paper proposes a new hybrid policy framework balancing the rights of content creators and AI innovators.
Under this proposed hybrid model, AI developers would have a blanket licence to use lawfully accessed content for training their AI. This blanket licence would not require individual negotiations. Content creators will be granted royalties after the AI tool is commercialised. The government will set the rate for these royalties.
A centralised authority, the Copyright Royalties Collective for AI Training, would handle the collection and disbursement of royalties reducing transaction costs, provide legal certainty, support equitable access to all AI developers, address grievances and even order remedies such as injunctions.
Comments and suggestions from the public and stakeholders on the working paper can be sent to ipr7-dipp@gov.in within 30 days of its release.
