India proposes “One Nation One License One Payment”

India’s Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) has published a working paper (“One Nation One License One Payment”) that proposes a mandatory blanket license for AI training on all lawfully accessed copyrighted works, with no opt-out for rightholders. This licensing scheme is combined with a revenue-linked statutory remuneration right collected by a new centralised body (CRCAT) and a requirement for rightholders to register works to receive royalties under the scheme.

At this point, this is probably the most comprehensive attempt by a government to establish a remuneration framework for the use of copyrighted works in the context of AI training and deployment. Interestingly, the DPIIT proposal shares some of the elements of what we had proposed earlier this year in our Beyond AI and Copyright white paper, most notably the shift of focus from permission for training (the proposal would allow training on all lawfully accessible works with no possibility for opt-outs) to a deployment-based remuneration mechanism (a percentage on revenue).

The proposal raises lots of questions about how such an approach could be implemented and will surely be controversial. From our perspective, the fundamental shortcoming is that it stays firmly anchored within copyright (remuneration would only accrue to rightholders) and thus fails to address what is in reality a much broader ecosystem problem that needs to be addressed well beyond the narrow scope of copyright.