Government panel to study AI-copyright hasn’t met since June; second working paper delayed

A government committee set up to study how artificial intelligence (AI) fits into India’s copyright law has not met since June, according to three members of the committee who told HT that the government’s interest in the matter has since faded. A second working paper on the AI-copyright issue, which the government had told the media would be out by February 2026, is still not ready, said the members.

The committee was formed by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) on April 28, 2025. It was asked to look at the legal and policy questions around AI and copyright, and to check whether the Copyright Act, 1957, is enough to deal with them. When the first working paper came out in December 2025, the committee said the second would follow in two months. Nearly 10 months on, there is no paper and no new timeline from DPIIT.

“The fizz has gone out from the government’s side. They are not prioritising this issue,” said one member, who did not want to be named. This member said the panel’s last consultation was held before the beginning of the monsoon session of parliemant.

The first paper dealt with the use of copyrighted material to train AI models. The second was to look at what AI produces. Members said the discussions on the second paper covered who owns AI-generated work, who is liable for it, what counts as originality, and whether AI-generated work should get copyright at all.

“Deliberations took place on the second part after the release of the first report, however they were sporadic in nature,” said another committee member. Members said the committee met every two weeks when they were charting out the first paper, however the meetings on the second paper got sporadic.

The first paper proposed a mandatory blanket licence. Under it, AI developers could train their models on all lawfully accessed copyrighted content in India without taking permission from each creator. In return, copyright owners would get payment through a new central collecting body.

DPIIT invited public comments on the proposal and extended the deadline by a month to February 6. Since then, no revised or final version has been released.

The first member quoted above said the issue has lost its urgency. “That time it was a major issue as people were complaining about AI training and its liability. I guess it’s become the status quo now. There is also not a lot of pushback from the public,” the member said.

While the policy work has stalled, the courts are dealing with the issue. In the case between news agency ANI and OpenAI, one of the first in India to question whether a news outlet’s content can be used to train tools like ChatGPT, the Delhi High Court gave an interim order in July 2026. It held, at first look, that OpenAI’s use of ANI’s content for training was protected as fair dealing, and refused to grant an injunction. ANI has since appealed against the single judge’s decision.

The committee’s members include DPIIT additional secretary Himani Pande, DPIIT director Simrat Kaur, IT ministry scientist Anurag Kumar, Nasscom’s Chockalingam M and Sudipto Bannerjee, IP lawyers Ameet Datta and Adarsh Ramanujan, and Delhi University professor Raman Mittal.

HT sent emails to Himani Pande and Simrat Kaur but did not receive a response by the time of publication.