Copyright Act may be updated for AI royalty

The government may consider amending the Copyright Act based on public feedback to enable the artificial intelligence (AI) royalty payment framework, officials said.

“We will relook at the paper after all the comments and may amend the Copyright Act,” an official said on condition of anonymity, after the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) committee on the intersection of AI and copyright released its first paper on December 8.

The second working paper on copyrightability of AI-generated content is expected to be released in around two months.


The committee, in the first report, proposed to give a mandatory blanket licence to artificial intelligence developers for using all legally accessed copyrightprotected works to train AI systems. However, the licence should be accompanied by a statutory remuneration right for the copyright holders, according to the committee's recommendation.

Under the proposal, a central body would be set up to collect royalty payments from AI companies and distribute them to creators whose content has been used. The working paper is open for public comments for 30 days.

“Global revenue will decide the percentage of royalty. We will create a grievance redressal mechanism while the dispute will go to court,” said the official.

As per the official, the final legal architecture has a three-year horizon to materialise.