Latest news with #IndianLaw
Reuters
06-05-2025
- Business
- Reuters
India panel to review copyright law amid legal challenges to OpenAI
NEW DELHI, May 6 (Reuters) - India has set up a panel to review if existing copyright law is sufficient to tackle AI-related disputes, an official memo showed, at a time when OpenAI faces legal challenges stemming from accusations of exploiting copyrighted material. A case in the high court in New Delhi by a group of top Indian news outlets and book publishers who say the firm uses their content without permission to help train its ChatGPT chatbot could reshape how the sector operates in India. OpenAI has denied wrongdoing. The memo, which is not public, said the commerce ministry set up a panel of eight experts last month to examine issues related to AI and their implications for India's copyright law. The experts have been tasked to "identify and analyze the legal and policy issues arising from the use of artificial intelligence in the context of copyright," the memo added. The panel of intellectual property lawyers, government officials and industry executives will also examine the adequacy of the Copyright Act of 1957 in resolving such concerns and make recommendations to the government, it said. India's commerce and infotech ministries did not respond to Reuters' queries. The copyright law has been at the centre of the OpenAI lawsuits in India. Billionaire Gautam Adani's NDTV, along with the Indian Express and Hindustan Times newspapers and the Digital News Publishers Association, which groups top news outlets, say they share concerns over copyright law violations by AI platforms using their data to train such apps. OpenAI says it uses public data to train its chatbot, which is not a violation of India's copyright law, and also provides an opt-out for websites that do not want their data used. Courts around the world are hearing claims by authors, news organisations and musicians which accuse technology companies of using their copyrighted work to train AI services without permission or payment.
Yahoo
19-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Effort to let nontribal property owners hunt on Flathead Indian Reservation fails
Feb. 18—The House Committe on Fish, Wildlife and Parks last week tabled a bill allowing some nontribal members to hunt deer and elk on the Flathead Indian Reservation. Under House Bill 216, residents of Flathead Indian Reservation would have been able to obtain a license to hunt deer and elk on their own land, regardless of their tribal affiliation. The bill challenged a long-standing agreement between the state and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes that allows nontribal members to hunt birds and fish on the reservation while preserving the exclusive right of tribal members to hunt big game. Rep. Tracy Sharp, R-Polson, introduced the bill under the argument that the restriction on nontribal hunters violates private property rights and the Montana Right to Harvest Act. "There's no asterisk here that says, 'Except for you guys. You don't get to hunt,'" said Sharp as he lofted a copy of the Montana Code Annotated at a Feb. 13 committee meeting. Rep. Tyson Running Wolf, D-Browning, disputed Sharp's argument and asserted that passing the bill would result in legal challenges for the state. "This is one of those times where we need to be educated on Indian Law so that we're not making determinations that can affect the state of Montana in a negative way," Running Wolf said. State and tribal wildlife officials echoed Running Wolf's concerns at a Jan. 28 hearing on the bill, during which several opponents referenced a 1990 lawsuit regarding nontribal fishing licenses. That lawsuit was eventually settled out of court when the state and tribes entered into their current fishing and hunting agreement. Opponents argued that HB 216 would have led to another arduous court case. Representatives from other Montana reservations also expressed concerns about the legal precedent the bill would set. While many other tribes permit big game hunting within reservation boundaries, tribal authorities said the bill threatened tribes' status as sovereign nations. "You know they start off with just taking a little tiny crumb, which ends up to be a big, big crumb," said Rep. Sidney "Chip" Fitzpatrick, D-Crow Agency. Fitzpatrick confirmed in the Feb. 13 hearing that his elders had urged him to vote against the bill because they worried it would lead to similar actions on their own reservation. The committee voted to table the bill after it failed to pass in a 9-11 vote. The head of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes' National Resources Department Rich Janssen Jr. said the vote was good news, but he doubts the bill's failure will quell the conflict between some nontribal residents and tribal wildlife officials. "It's the same few that want to try to impede tribal sovereignty and hunting rights on the reservation," said Janssen. "I fully expect they'll try to find another way to try to bring this to the forefront." The 2025 bill was preceded by a 2023 ballot initiative and a 2021 bill. Both failed to gain traction during the early stages of development, a fact Janssen partly attributes to the tribes' successful collaboration with state wildlife officials. "The bottom line is, we work well with the state of Montana," said Janssen. Reporter Hailey Smalley can be reached at hsmalley@ or at 758-4433.
