Context: Last month, Ani Media Pvt Ltd., better known under its Asian News International brand, sued OpenAI in the Delhi High Court (November 18, 2024 ai fray article), seeking a preliminary injunction (PI). Three days later, the same court also ordered the forming of a committee to hear various stakeholders, including internet intermediaries, telecom service providers, victims of deepfakes and websites using deepfakes.
What’s new: Indian advertising firm Mash Audio Visuals Pvt Ltd. has filed a petition in the Delhi High Court, seeking the prohibition and punishment of the sale of AI-generated images that are created using the original works of artists without their permission. The action, which has been filed as public interest litigation, is seeking the amendment of India’s Copyright Act 1957 and its Information Technology Rules so that it can rule over cases of cheating by impersonation using AI or deepfakes.
Direct impact and wider ramifications: While the petition alone faces a huge task at hand, it joins a number of other complaints filed before the Delhi High Court that deal with the issue of AI and deepfake copyright violations. The court may already be starting to feel the pressure – as indicated by comments made by Chief Justice Manmohan before he listed the plea for a hearing on 24 March 2025: “We don’t have a magic wand in our hands. We have directed them to look into this aspect… we can’t do anything more than that. Everyone is facing the challenge.”
Mash Audio Visuals Pvt Ltd., which owns stock photography website Images Bazaar, filed the petition together with professional model Kanchan Nagar and photographer Vikas Saboo on behalf of artists across India. Their claim not only seeks to bring impersonation using AI or deepfakes under the ambit of the Information Technology Act, but also seeks to block public access to unregulated applications software, platforms and websites enabling the creation of AI-generated images.
They alleged that the violation of the Copyright Act has affected the “livelihood of the artists, as AI is stealing their jobs, which is leading to an end of their careers”, adding that texts replicating their artistic style are an “existential threat” for the artists and other creators.
The petitioners have also asked for the court to appoint a dedicated nodal officer for receiving complaints regarding infringement of copyright by AI.
Sim and San partner Mohit Goel, who is joint counsel for the petitioners with ELP partner Mumtaz Bhalla, tells ip fray that India’s current Copyright Act raises “significant concerns” regarding the misuse of AI in content creation and highlights the “inadequacy” of current legal remedies to address such issues effectively.
“Formulating requisite guidelines for use of AI in advertising inter-alia in relation to balancing it with safeguarding intellectual property rights, personality rights and fundamental rights, is the need of the hour,” he says. Goel also argues that, until the time appropriate laws and rules are framed by the government and its authorities, AI should not be used to generate output which has been derived from the creative content used to train AI models, including through Stable Diffusion.
ELP‘s Mumtaz Bhalla tells ip fray that the petition is significant because the issue of AI regulation is no longer just that of IP anymore. “It goes beyond IP,” she says, adding:
“The [question] is: is the concept of consent of a woman restricted only to physical touch or does it extend to digital touch which can affect the fundamental right to life of such woman? Can artists who have put years of hard work into creating their work be left remediless? In the absence of stringent rules, stealing women’s faces and artistic creations of artists to train AI without consent and fair compensation is legitimising copyright violation and fundamental right violation, which has large scale ramifications.”
In court, she argued: “Not everybody has the power or the means or the courage to come to the courts. A lack of a clear provision fails to act as a deterrent. All we are requesting is for the purpose of commercial advertising, at least faces of women may not be used.”
This public interest litigation follows a separate, private action filed by ANI Media last month, in which it was later revealed that the publisher is seeking the world’s first PI against OpenAI (November 25, 2024 ai fray article). OpenAI faces disputes in multiple jurisdictions over alleged copyright infringement, including the U.S. (July 2, 2024 ai fray article), Germany (November 14, 2024 ai fray article) and Canada (December 3, 2024 ai fray article). But India is home to a market of over 1.4 billion people and is one of the global tech industry’s centers.
And the pressure is mounting on India to deal with issues surrounding AI and copyright: just last month the Delhi High Court ordered a committee constituted by the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to study the issue of deepfakes. The committee has been tasked with hearing stakeholders, including internet intermediaries, telecom service providers, victims of deepfakes and websites using deepfakes.