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Technology and policy in India
The BBC has threatened to take legal action against AI news aggregator Perplexity for allegedly creating verbatim reproductions of BBC reports. In a report about the development, the BBC stated that it had written to Perplexity, demanding the company cease using BBC content, delete any existing content, and propose financial compensation for the content used so far. Based on its research, the BBC claims that popular chatbots (including Perplexity) inaccurately summarize news stories, which is highly damaging to its reputation and could undermine trust in its content.
This is not the first time Perplexity has ended up in hot water over potential copyright violations. In June 2024, Forbes accused the aggregator of plagiarising it and other news publications. Soon after, WIRED conducted an investigation that found Perplexity was still crawling websites even after they had blocked it. Notably, the BBC also flagged issues with Perplexity’s web crawler not respecting robots.txt files, stating that it had disallowed two of the crawlers from accessing its site.
Amidst the pushback from publications over alleged copyright violations, in August 2024, the company signed a revenue-sharing deal with select news platforms, including TIME, Der Spiegel, Fortune, Entrepreneur, and The Texas Tribune. However, it is still engaged in a lawsuit against News Corp (which owns publications such as The Wall Street Journal and The New York Post). News Corp has demanded up to $150,000 per work of infringement, damages, and the profits Perplexity made from said infringement.
In December last year, the UK government conducted a consultation on AI and copyright. The consultation proposed three different approaches to tackle the growing concerns of copyright holders and AI developers. These were:
The government appeared to favour the third option.
As per a recently passed Data Use and Access Bill, the UK Secretary of State is required to conduct an economic assessment of the policy measures suggested in the December consultation.
OpenAI is currently engaged in a copyright infringement lawsuit filed by ANI in India. This lawsuit has brought to the fore many aspects of the copyright debate, including whether storing copyright-protected data amounts to infringement and whether using copyrighted data to generate responses qualifies as fair use. The decision in this case could shape how Indian courts interpret copyright law in the context of AI models.
While the courts deliberate on the current law’s stance on AI data scraping, the Indian government has formed a multi-stakeholder committee to examine the intersection of AI and copyright. This committee is assessing whether the existing law is sufficient to address legal issues arising from AI’s use.
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Edward Snowden warns AI surveillance is rapidly expanding, threatening privacy and personal freedom. Learn how this tech reshapes our digital world.
Global investor group Prosus in its 2025 report reported that Swiggy reduced its adjusted EBITDA loss by 30% and PayU saw a 12% revenue rise.
MediaNama is the premier source of information and analysis on Technology Policy in India. More about MediaNama, and contact information, here.
© 2024 Mixed Bag Media Pvt. Ltd.
source
Technology and policy in India
The BBC has threatened to take legal action against AI news aggregator Perplexity for allegedly creating verbatim reproductions of BBC reports. In a report about the development, the BBC stated that it had written to Perplexity, demanding the company cease using BBC content, delete any existing content, and propose financial compensation for the content used so far. Based on its research, the BBC claims that popular chatbots (including Perplexity) inaccurately summarize news stories, which is highly damaging to its reputation and could undermine trust in its content.
This is not the first time Perplexity has ended up in hot water over potential copyright violations. In June 2024, Forbes accused the aggregator of plagiarising it and other news publications. Soon after, WIRED conducted an investigation that found Perplexity was still crawling websites even after they had blocked it. Notably, the BBC also flagged issues with Perplexity’s web crawler not respecting robots.txt files, stating that it had disallowed two of the crawlers from accessing its site.
Amidst the pushback from publications over alleged copyright violations, in August 2024, the company signed a revenue-sharing deal with select news platforms, including TIME, Der Spiegel, Fortune, Entrepreneur, and The Texas Tribune. However, it is still engaged in a lawsuit against News Corp (which owns publications such as The Wall Street Journal and The New York Post). News Corp has demanded up to $150,000 per work of infringement, damages, and the profits Perplexity made from said infringement.
In December last year, the UK government conducted a consultation on AI and copyright. The consultation proposed three different approaches to tackle the growing concerns of copyright holders and AI developers. These were:
The government appeared to favour the third option.
As per a recently passed Data Use and Access Bill, the UK Secretary of State is required to conduct an economic assessment of the policy measures suggested in the December consultation.
OpenAI is currently engaged in a copyright infringement lawsuit filed by ANI in India. This lawsuit has brought to the fore many aspects of the copyright debate, including whether storing copyright-protected data amounts to infringement and whether using copyrighted data to generate responses qualifies as fair use. The decision in this case could shape how Indian courts interpret copyright law in the context of AI models.
While the courts deliberate on the current law’s stance on AI data scraping, the Indian government has formed a multi-stakeholder committee to examine the intersection of AI and copyright. This committee is assessing whether the existing law is sufficient to address legal issues arising from AI’s use.
Also read:
For You
- Read Reasoned by Nikhil Pahwa: How AI is changing our world
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Edward Snowden warns AI surveillance is rapidly expanding, threatening privacy and personal freedom. Learn how this tech reshapes our digital world.
Global investor group Prosus in its 2025 report reported that Swiggy reduced its adjusted EBITDA loss by 30% and PayU saw a 12% revenue rise.
MediaNama is the premier source of information and analysis on Technology Policy in India. More about MediaNama, and contact information, here.
© 2024 Mixed Bag Media Pvt. Ltd.
source
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