T-Series, Saregama, Sony join forces in copyright lawsuit against OpenAI

New Delhi: After news publishers, India’s top music labels, such as T-Series, Saregama, and Sony, are joining copyright lawsuit against Open AI because of worries surrounding the use of recordings to train AI models.

The lawsuit, which was initially filed by Indian news agency ANI, has now expanded to include these music industry heavyweights, highlighting a broader industry worry about how AI companies handle copyrighted content.

Along with T-Series, the Indian Music Industry (IMI) group and Saregama approached the Delhi High Court on February 13, 2025, asserting that the matter is significant for the music industry in India and globally.

The main cause of concern for Indian music labels is that the large language models (LLMs) developed by OpenAI, can extract lyrics, compositions, and sound recordings from the internet without due authorisation.

The music labels plan to be part of a lawsuit filed last year by the wire news agency ANI, which accused OpenAI’s ChatGPT of using its content without authorisation for AI training. 

The same lawsuit was joined by media publications earlier where they alleged that OpenAI used their copyrighted content for training its AI models.

Defending the allegations, OpenAI contended that Indian courts lack jurisdiction as the company is based in the United States with servers located abroad.

It is important to note that this development has come after Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, tried to woo IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw during a fireside chat, during which he gave a ringing endorsement to India's efforts in building on AI at all levels of the stack, chips, models, and "the incredible applications."

The next hearing for the case is scheduled for February 21, 2025.