India to Enact New Law on Artificial Intelligence to Protect News Publishers, Content Creators

India is considering enacting a new law on Artificial Intelligence that aims at safeguarding the interests of news publishers and content creators in the country while reducing any harm from unscrupulous persons, Ashwini Vaishnaw, the Minister of Electronics and Information Technology said, according to a report published today by the Mumbai-based financial daily, Economic Times.

According to the report, this new law could be either a separate legislation of part of the forthcoming Digital India Bill that’s expected to supersede the IT Act of 2000. “There is a need for respect for creativity in terms of intellectual properly and its financial implications,” the minister emphasized. The minister further said, a legislative type of regulation would be more effective in protecting news publishers and content creators in India compared to an autonomous body.

He noted that such a regulation comes on heels of a global demand for the protection of rights of content creators and that numerous lawsuits are currently pending against tech giants for using copyrighted content without compensating their owners.

The minister further pointed out that news publishers in India were clamoring for changes to the existent IT rules to ensure fair compensation for content used by IT models. The Digital New Publishers of India, which represents the topmost 17 media publishers, has sought protection against potential copyright violations by creators of these AI modules.

AI models that are under-tested unreliable AI should be opened to general public only after they are labeled according to their risks, under a current government advisory. The advisory released in mid-March claims the label should make the “possible inherent fallibility or unreliability of the output generated” clear to the user, the report further adds.