Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) can generate and manipulate our ideas and thinking by creating human-like content via non-human intelligence.[1] These software(s) such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT/ GPT-4, Google’s BARD, inter alia, are initially trained on a large data sets and computing power. After the training, they are capable of self-enhancement to generate unique and personalised content.[2] This has posed novel questions before the copyright experts, as content generation, previously reliant on human inputs, has moved beyond that realm. Now, instead of answers based on user queries – as obtained via Google’s search engine – customized personal content is delivered to the user. Creation of this new content through GenAI has led to concerns on copyright infringement, privacy violation, libel and defamation, etc. Copyright infringement is particularly worrisome as the companies are using the user-generated data to train these software(s), which includes the data generated by minors, amplifying their vulnerability. Questions arise regarding the extent to which the companies can claim ‘fair-use’ exception of the Copyright Act? This article attempts to bring some clarity over these issues. It incorporates two landmark US cases against OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Alphabet Inc., respectively[3], and their implications in India, including the India’s recently-passed Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023.

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The Price For The Sound Of Music: Impact Of The 2012 Amendment On Royalties

The ownership of derivative works has been hotly contested by authors, composers and lyricists (collectively, “authors”) on the one end of the bargaining spectrum; and producers, music labels and broadcasters on the other. This tussle has raised certain rudimentary questions – first, will the author’s copyright in the underlying work continue to subsist after its incorporation in the final (derivative) work; and second, will authors continue to receive royalty for utilisation of their work as part of such final work. These questions turn the focus on whether the 2012 Amendment (“Amendment”) to the Copyright Act, 1957 (“Act”) “fundamentally changed” the treatment of authors’ rights with respect to original, underlying works created by them.

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