Indian creators lobby for protection against AI use and misuse

Film groups representing Bollywood and Hollywood are lobbying the Indian government to ensure their works are not used by AI companies to train their LLMs. The Producers Guild of India and US Motion Picture Association have written to a government review panel set up to review AI and copyright.

The groups expressed concern that AI firms could scrape their film content and even use pirated content in their LLMs. At present the Indian copyright law does cover AI use. The letters express the wish that a licensing system be used to pay creators for content use in AI and LLMs. They also argued that India should not adopt an EU style opt-out system as it will puts a huge burden on creators.

India has formed a panel of lawyers, government officials and industry executives under commerce ministry official Himani Pande, to review the copyright law and whether it can address AI issues in its current form. They are due to make recommendations on amending the law.

The Indian Guild's CEO Nitin Tej Ahuja stated in their letter that "licensing copyrighted works is essential for creators' revenue and business sustainability."

While India has a massive and vibrant 13-billion-dollar film industry, it also has a massive software sector which is also lobbying to allow content use to develop its AI industry. This will lead to come conflicting positions, the government will need to consider.