Indian Music Companies Join Copyright Case Against ChatGPT

Photo: Reuters

India-West News Desk

NEW DELHI– Major Indian music labels, including T-Series, Saregama, and Sony, have asked a New Delhi court to be included in a copyright lawsuit against OpenAI, citing concerns over unauthorized use of their sound recordings for AI model training.

The lawsuit was initially filed last year by Indian news agency ANI, which accused OpenAI’s ChatGPT of using its content without permission. Since then, book publishers and media groups, including those backed by Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani, have also challenged OpenAI in court, Reuters reported.

India is OpenAI’s second-largest market by users. The company argues that it follows fair-use principles and relies on publicly available data to train its AI models.

T-Series, one of India’s largest record labels, releases about 2,000 songs annually, while Saregama, a century-old company, owns a vast catalog of classic Indian music. IMI also represents global firms such as Sony Music and Warner Music.

Industry sources told Reuters Indian music labels are concerned that AI systems can extract lyrics, compositions, and sound recordings from the internet. Similar concerns were raised in Germany, where music rights group GEMA sued OpenAI last year over alleged unlicensed reproduction of song lyrics.

OpenAI has opposed ANI’s lawsuit, arguing that Indian courts lack jurisdiction since the company is U.S.-based with servers located abroad.