ARCHIVES
VOL. 11, ISSUE 12 (2025)
Reforming copyright law in the age of generative AI
Authors
Pooja Raj
Abstract
India’s copyright framework is facing
unprecedented disruption from generative artificial intelligence technologies,
necessitating comprehensive legal reform that addresses fundamental tensions
between creator protection, technological innovation and knowledge
dissemination. The Indian Copyright Act, 1957, formulated during the
pre-digital era, presumes discrete human authorship and limited-scale
reproduction, assumptions rendered obsolete by industrial-scale machine
learning systems trained on millions of copyrighted works without authorisation
or compensation. This study examines authorship and ownership challenges, analysing
how courts and legislatures worldwide struggle to allocate rights when
autonomous systems generate literary, artistic and musical works with minimal
human participation. India’s landmark litigation, ANI Media Pvt Ltd v. OpenAI
Inc., exemplifies these doctrinal inadequacies, prompting governmental
initiatives that propose statutory amendments distinguishing between artificial
intelligence-generated and artificial intelligence-assisted works. The research
evaluates how fair dealing provisions require expansion to include explicit
text and data mining exceptions, coupled with mandatory blanket licensing, to
ensure proportional compensation for copyright holders rather than relying on the
indeterminate doctrine of fair use. Simultaneously, copyright law must strike a
balance between creator protection and the imperatives of educational access,
research dissemination and technological innovation that are fundamental to
India’s development objectives. Strategic reforms include establishing a centralised
Copyright Royalties Collective for AI Training, implementing mandatory
registration and disclosure frameworks, expanding Section 52 of the Copyright
Act and promoting inter-ministerial coordination among the Department for
Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, the MoEIT and the NITI. International
alignment with the World Intellectual Property Organisation and TRIPS
frameworks ensures regulatory coherence whilst preserving developmental
flexibility. These consolidated policy directions establish statutory clarity
regarding authorship, transparent disclosure mechanisms, statutory licensing
with proportional compensation, inter-ministerial coordination and
international alignment, enabling India’s copyright law to accommodate
technological advancement whilst maintaining its foundational constitutional
purpose of incentivising human creativity, protecting creator rights,
disseminating knowledge and facilitating innovation serving the broader public
interest.
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Pages:152-159
How to cite this article:
Pooja Raj "Reforming copyright law in the age of generative AI". International Journal of Law, Vol 11, Issue 12, 2025, Pages 152-159
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