Bollywood's biggest record labels are seeking to join a lawsuit against OpenAI in New Delhi, in another attempt to challenge the US company's use of foreign audio recordings to train artificial intelligence.
OpenAI, which is backed by Microsoft, argues that using copyrighted material that is available online constitutes “fair use.”
However, Indian record labels, which represent OpenAI's second largest user market, are complaining that the company is violating their copyrights.
Large artificial intelligence models, such as those from OpenAI, are often found to imitate the style of specific artists or reproduce song lyrics without the necessary compensation to the creators.
On Thursday, the Indian Music Industry Association (IMI), along with record labels T-Series and Saregama India, asked a New Delhi court to look into the “unauthorized use” of audio recordings by OpenAI to train its algorithms.
The record labels stress that this case is critical not only for the Indian music industry, but also for the music industry worldwide, according to legal documents reviewed by Reuters.
Theft of lyrics and musical compositions
According to music industry sources, the companies are concerned that OpenAI and other AI systems may be ripping lyrics, compositions and recordings from the Internet without permission. For this reason, the record labels are seeking to join as plaintiffs in a lawsuit already filed by the Indian news agency ANI against OpenAI, alleging that its articles were used to train the company's AI models.
Several powerful publishing groups and media companies, owned by billionaires such as Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani, have also joined forces against OpenAI in the New Delhi court.
Indian music industry and international legal disputes
Bollywood cinema and Hindi pop music are key pillars of the Indian cultural industry. T-Series, one of the largest record labels in India, releases around 2.000 songs every year, while Saregama, with over a century of history, represents iconic Indian artists such as Mohammed Rafi and Lata Mangeshkar.
This case adds to the lawsuit filed by German music rights association GEMA against OpenAI in November, representing composers and songwriters who claim that OpenAI's models reproduce protected lyrics.
The next hearing in India is scheduled for February 21.
Last week, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman visited India and met with the Information Technology Minister to discuss the prospects for artificial intelligence in the country.
