New Copyright Policy for AI Model Training!

The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), under the Ministry of Commerce & Industry, has proposed a new framework to address copyright issues related to AI model training. A government committee has suggested introducing a mandatory blanket licence for AI companies like Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic. Under this system, AI developers would make a flat payment to rightsholders when copyrighted content is used to train commercial AI models, helping protect creators and remove fair-use ambiguity.

In its 125-page working paper titled “One Nation One Licence One Payment: Balancing AI Innovation and Copyright,” DPIIT recommends a hybrid licensing model where AI developers can use any lawfully accessed copyrighted work without negotiating individual agreements. The royalties would be paid only when AI models trained on the content are commercialised. A proposed central body, the Copyright Royalties Collective for AI Training (CRCAT), would collect and distribute these royalties, with rates fixed by a government-appointed committee. The proposal also suggests retroactive payments for companies that have already trained commercial models on Indian copyrighted works.

The paper rejects approaches like “zero-price licences” and opt-out systems, stating they impose unfair burdens on creators, especially smaller ones. DPIIT has opened the draft for public consultation, inviting feedback from stakeholders for the next 30 days.