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India’s commerce ministry proposes a mandatory licensing framework for AI developers to access copyrighted works, prompting concerns over enforcement and international implications in the evolving landscape of AI regulation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
India\u2019s commerce ministry has put forward a proposal that would require artificial intelligence developers to obtain a single, mandatory licence before using lawfully accessed Indian copyrighted works to train their models. According to the announcement by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, the \u201cOne Nation, One Licence, One Payment\u201d framework aims to secure payments to creators while simplifying access to copyrighted material for AI training. (Inspired by headline at: [1]<\/a><\/sup>)<\/p>\n Under the plan, royalties collected would be proportionate to the revenues of AI firms and administered centrally. The proposal envisions a government\u2011designated, non\u2011profit body to receive payments and distribute them to authors, artists, publishers and news organisations, with a government panel setting the fee structure linked to commercial income derived from models trained on protected works. According to reporting on the proposal, the scheme also contemplates a statutory right to remuneration for rights\u2011holders.<\/p>\n Industry representatives have warned the plan could be difficult to operationalise. Nasscom, India\u2019s principal IT industry association, has formally opposed a mandatory blanket licence, arguing that technical, economic and enforcement hurdles make the scheme infeasible in practice. The trade body said mandatory global\u2011revenue linked royalties and centralised collection raise complex questions for companies, particularly for international developers.<\/p>\n Practical enforcement is a recurring concern. The DPIIT\u2019s draft contemplates that developers would use only lawfully accessed material and provide summaries of training data, including sources and types of content, but critics note verifying compliance across vast, rapidly evolving datasets will be challenging. Analysts point to the difficulty of attributing contribution to individual works inside large training corpora and of auditing global revenues against licensing obligations.<\/p>\n Proponents counter that the framework attempts to rebalance benefits from AI development by ensuring creators share in commercial gains. Government documents and committee recommendations argue a statutory remuneration mechanism, administered by the centralised collective, will reduce litigation and create a predictable permission route for developers seeking to use copyrighted material lawfully.<\/p>\n The proposal has also sparked questions about international precedent and cross\u2011border implications. Industry observers say linking royalties to global revenues could prompt disputes over jurisdiction, double payments and how foreign\u2011based developers report income, turning the Indian initiative into a focal point in the global copyright debate over how AI should access and pay for creative works.<\/p>\n The plan remains at the proposal stage, with a government\u2011appointed committee having laid out recommendations and the DPIIT still taking inputs. Further policy decisions and any legislative route will determine whether the proposed blanket licence becomes a model adopted elsewhere or a contested experiment in regulating the economics of AI training.<\/p>\n Inspired by headline at:<\/strong> [1]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\nSource Reference Map<\/h3>\n