India’s moment to restoring balance to copyright, Pg8

Key Highlights:

• The India-AI Impact Summit 2026 in New Delhi highlights the need to re-evaluate copyright laws.
• Current copyright laws excessively protect content, hindering access to knowledge and technological advancement, particularly in AI training.
• A study by LIRNEasia found that copyright laws in many South and Southeast Asian countries make web search engines and AI training illegal.
• The author advocates for flexible copyright exceptions, similar to those in the EU, Japan, and Singapore, to promote creativity and innovation.

Detailed Insights:

• The Marrakesh Treaty was created to enable cross-border exchange of accessible-format books for visually impaired persons.
• The Statute of Anne in 1710 granted authors a limited monopoly of 14 years, whereas current laws extend copyright to the author's lifetime plus 70 years.
• Web search engines and AI models use copyrighted material as data for statistical purposes, not for enjoyment, necessitating different legal treatment.
• India's lack of broad text and data-mining exceptions creates legal uncertainty for AI training data collection.
• Copyright law should encourage contributions to the commons, such as open-licensed AI models and datasets.
• Governments should curate high-quality, locally relevant datasets and protect them from copyright claims when used for training open-source models.
• Flexible exceptions to copyright law are needed to democratize access to knowledge, unleash creativity, and drive innovation.

Key Concepts Involved:

• Copyright Maximalism: The idea that copyright should be expanded as far as possible, even at the expense of other values.
• Fair Use: Legal doctrine that permits limited use of copyrighted material without permission from the rights holder.
• Text and Data Mining: Automated process of extracting information from large amounts of text or data.