The rapidly increasing power of AI is now becoming a big threat to the news industry around the world. Many tech companies including Google are now bringing such AI search tools that give answers directly to the user, which can reduce the need for people to visit news websites. Experts believe that this is not just a change in technology, but has become a fight for the future of journalism. In India too, this matter is gradually taking the form of a debate on copyright and revenue sharing.
How AI summary is becoming a threat to the news industry
According to the report of TimesNowNews.com, Google and other tech companies are now emphasizing on such AI tools that scan news articles, blogs and social media posts and give answers directly to the user. This reduces the need for the user to click on the actual website. According to the report, tech lawyer and AI governance expert Shweta Bansal says that publishers can argue that AI is not doing the work of summary content discovery but content replacement. Under the Indian Copyright Act, the owner has the right to reproduce any content and make it available to the public. If AI provides key information about a news story directly to the user, it could harm the economic value of original reporting.
What does the law say in India?
According to the report of TimesNowNews.com, there are no clear rules regarding AI and journalistic content in the current laws of India. According to Shweta Bansal, the Copyright Act and the IT Act provide a framework to some extent, but there is no separate law regarding the use of Generative AI. Section 79 of the IT Act gives some protection to intermediary platforms, but when an AI generates the answers itself, it becomes difficult to call it a mere intermediary. Meanwhile, Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnav has also said that social media and tech platforms should do proper revenue sharing with content creators. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has also raised the issue of responsible and human-centric AI governance in many international forums.
How AI and copyright rules are changing in the world
Many countries of the world are now moving towards making new rules regarding AI and news content. Australia has already introduced a model where tech companies may have to pay news publishers. China has implemented provisional rules for generative AI, which require labeling of text, photos, audio and video generated by AI. In 2014 itself, Spain started demanding payment from companies like Google in exchange for showing news excerpts. Later, after the new copyright rules of the European Union, a licensing agreement was found there. Experts believe that if AI search experience continues to reduce the readership and earnings of news websites, then there could be a big economic crisis for independent journalism in the future.
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