Will the media & entertainment industry see eye-to-AI? – SAundCheck

If you look closely at the term Media & Entertainment, there are two letters in each of them, namely “A” and “I”, which are causing immense controversy and heart burn, among other emotions, for content creators and for the other stake holders within the industry.

While the recognition provided by the Recording Academy of the United States to the iconic Beatles, who officially disbanded in 1970 and, now, 55 years later were awarded a Grammy award for ‘Best Rock Performance’ on February 2nd, 2025, for a song titled “Now And Then“, would have us believe that, a track supported by artificial intelligence (AI), was reason enough for this generative technology to be considered a legitimate and legal tool for creativity, think again…

March 2025 is likely to be a landmark month of sorts for both the media and entertainment industry as well as for AI. On the 10^th of that month, in the ongoing hearing before the Honourable Delhi High Court in the matter of news agency ANI vs OpenAI, the parent of ChatGPT, the Indian Music Industry (IMI) has pleaded to be enjoined as a party. Honourable Judge Amit Bansal will be reviewing the arguments presented then, which is expected to have a significant impact on how copyright laws apply to AI-generated content and the protection of content creators’ original work in this digital age.

Several of India’s leading music labels represented by IMI, including T-Series and Saregama, are looking forward to becoming a party in this lawsuit which has accused OpenAI of using content without authorisation to train its models and, with it, demanding that the AI firm immediately stop using its content, delete any and all stored materials, and pay damages of ₹2 crore towards the unauthorised usage of past content. Agency ANI contends that OpenAI trained its large language model (LLM) using ANI’s content without a proper license and, thereby, exploiting its work for commercial gain.

Similarly, IMI is concerned that OpenAI’s models may have extracted literary works (lyrics), musical works (compositions), and sound recordings from the internet without prior consent. IMI is spearheading the legal initiative, as it also represents global majors like Universal Music, Sony Music, and Warner Music within India, as the outcome would impact the future use of copyrighted content in AI training, an issue that has significant implications for the global music industry.

During the previous hearing held on February 21st, 2025, the Honourable Delhi Hight Court issued notices to two intervenors: the Indian Governance and Policy Project, which seeks to present its views on the policy implications of the case, and Gurugram-based Flux Labs AI, a startup supporting OpenAI’s stance, which argued that extracting non-expressive data for training purposes should not be considered copyright infringement.

The case has drawn significant attention, as anticipated, with various industry groups besides the Indian Music Industry, such as the Federation of Indian Publishers, and the Digital News Publishers Association, supporting ANI’s position. On the other hand, Flux Labs is the first entity to back OpenAI in this dispute.

The outcome of this case could have significant implications for OpenAI’s operations in India where the company apparently has approximately 9.5% of its 300 million weekly active ChatGPT users, or around 28.5 million users. Meanwhile, OpenAI also faces new competition from Chinese startup DeepSeek, which has made significant breakthroughs in cost-effective AI computing.

Under the circumstances, the first big question appears to be: does AI violate artist copyrights? The second major issue is: what rights do human copyright owners have when AI creates something…apparently, new? Hence, does the training that is required to create these complex AI models infringe copyright? In other words, if AI is trained to extensively listen to music, has the copyright of the owners of that (piece of) music been infringed if done so without their consent? Or is that protected in some manner by way of “fair dealing” under Section 52 of the Indian Copyright Act, 1957?

With AI constantly evolving itself, it appears to be only days away before the Indian music industry takes the (month of) march forward…