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Hollywood and Bollywood groups lobby Indian panels to protect content against AI models

Letters show that Hollywood and Bollywood groups lobby an Indian panel to increase copyright protection so that artificial intelligence companies cannot use their intellectual property for training AI models. AI companies are at odds with content owners around the world, and governments are developing rules to govern this new technology. While Japan allows AI firms to use copyrighted material, the European Union's rules are stricter and allow content owners to opt out.

The film industry is especially concerned that AI could scrape copyrighted online videos, images and clippings like trailers and promotions - and even more importantly ingest pirated material onto their platforms. India's copyright law doesn't account for AI use. This year, the government created a panel of lawyers, government officials, and industry executives, to examine if copyright laws are sufficient to handle AI-related disputes and to make recommendations.

WORRIED FILM STUDIOS LOBBYING HARD

Motion Picture Association (MPA), the association that represents Warner Bros., Paramount, and Netflix, as well as Producers Guild of India, have both argued India shouldn't tinker its copyright laws and should instead promote a licensing regime. MPA India's Managing Director Uday Sing responded to the panel’s private inquiry about why India shouldn’t allow blanket training exemptions to boost AI innovation in a letter dated August 2, saying that the move would "undermine incentives to create new works" and "erode copyright protections in India."

In his letter, Nitin Tej Ahuja, the CEO of the Indian guild told panelists that "licensing copies rights is essential for creators to earn revenue and sustain their business."

The MPA refused to comment while the Guild did not reply to questions about the letters which are not publicly available.

Himani Pande of the Indian commerce ministry, who chairs this panel, has not responded to any questions. A source with direct knowledge of the panel said that it is currently finalising its recommendations, which will be presented to senior officials within weeks.

INDIA'S VIBRANT MUSIC MARKET

India is home to one of the most dynamic film industries in the world. In May, a Deloitte/MPA report said that India's film and TV industries generated revenues of $13.1 billion last year. This has been growing by 18% every year since 2019. Deliberations are taking place at a time when a Bollywood couple is suing YouTube for AI policies, after their manipulated videos spread online.

The position of the film studios is different from that of the Business Software Alliance (which represents AI companies like OpenAI) which, in its public submissions made in July, argued for New Delhi to ensure exceptions allowing lawful AI usage. MPA members remain concerned.

The association said India shouldn't consider allowing the use of content for AI models that have an opt-out option, as this would put the responsibility on movie studios. This could force them track their own work and stop it from being shared on multiple AI platforms.

MPA India stated that such exceptions would "hinder future investments and development of high quality local content." Warner filed a lawsuit against AI service Midjourney, claiming that it had blatantly stolen the studio's work to create images and videos featuring Batman, Superman and Bugs Bunny.

Midjourney claims that the way in which it trains its AI models is fair use. Reporting by Arpan chaturvedi, Aditya Kalra and Raju Gopalakrishnan; editing by Raju gopalakrishnan

(source: Reuters)