Regulating Generative AI: Solving The Copyright Conundrum In India
Ms. Parnika Basak & Mr. Kaustav Chowdhury, Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (Deemed to be) University, School of Law, Bhubaneswar
ABSTRACT
The rapid evolution of generative artificial intelligence (AI) technology has fundamentally altered the concept of copyright law by upsetting established concepts of authorship, originality, and infringement. Copyright law in India, developed on the understanding of human creativity, fails to deal with the issues of AI outputs and the mass use of copyrighted material for training AI. This essay posits that rather than destroying Indian copyright law altogether, the law should be reworked in a doctrinal fashion. A human-centric test for authorship, an adapted test for output infringement, and a well-defined text- and-data-mining exception should form part of such an effort.
By doing so, the paper draws a distinction between the training process of a generative AI system and its output process to analyze whether doctrines like reproduction, adaptation, and fair dealing in the Indian Copyright Act, 1957 are adequate enough to resolve the arising issues. Further, the developments that have taken place in the US and the European Union will also be analyzed to understand where the issue stands on a global level. The paper emphasizes the need for striking a balance in the reform by keeping in mind fundamental constitutional concepts like freedom of expression and proportionality.
Keywords: Generative AI, Copyright Law, Artificial Intelligence, Intellectual Property Rights, AI-Generated Content, Copyright Infringement, Authorship, India, Technology Regulation, Machine Learning.
