"AI is the first technology in history that can create new stories, melodies, images and laws." - Yuval Noah Harari, Historian and Philosopher.
Global debate
Generative AI models rely on vast datasets from books, music and images. This creates a conflict between data hungry technology (that cannot work without it) and the economic rights of creators. India is now grappling with this dilemma and a government committee has proposed a new framework to manage this tension.
A hybrid model
The suggestion is to issue a mandatory blanket license. This grants developers the right to use lawfully obtained copyrighted works for training. In exchange creators receive a statutory right to remuneration. This fee is a percentage of gross global revenue collected and managed by a designated government body.
Challenges galore
While the idea aims for fairness it faces practical hurdles. It is difficult to define revenue for global companies where Indian content is just a fraction of the data. Tying royalties to overall commercial success creates arbitrary outcomes for integrated tech products like search engines.
Problem of access
The requirement for lawful access creates complications. Publishers can still lock content behind paywalls which forces developers to negotiate separate deals. This means royalty payments become mandatory yet the underlying data remains inaccessible leaving power with large entities rather than individual creators.
Operational tensions
Distributing these royalties is equally complex. The proposed collective known as CRCAT would struggle to grade works fairly across different industries. A weighting formula based on traffic or citations will inevitably favor some types of visibility over others which undermines the promise of neutrality.
Summary
India is attempting to resolve the AI copyright conflict through a mandatory licensing and revenue sharing model. However the proposal faces significant challenges regarding how to calculate global revenue, ensure actual data access for developers, and fairly distribute royalties among vastly different types of creative work.
Food for thought
If we tax global AI revenue for local content usage, will tech giants simply exclude that region's data from their models to avoid the cost?
AI concept to learn: Data-hungry AI
Data-hungry AI
refers to modern AI systems - especially large language and vision
models - that require enormous amounts of data to learn patterns, context,
and nuance. Their performance improves with scale, but this appetite
creates tensions around copyright, consent, privacy, and power
concentration. While big firms can afford vast datasets, individual
creators often remain uncompensated. The result is an imbalance where
intelligence grows rapidly, but governance, attribution, and fair
value-sharing struggle to keep pace..
[The Billion Hopes Research Team shares the latest AI updates for learning and awareness. Various sources are used. All copyrights acknowledged. This is not a professional, financial, personal or medical advice. Please consult domain experts before making decisions. Feedback welcome!]
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