T-Series, Saregama, Sony To Challenge OpenAI In Copyright Lawsuit in Delhi High Court

T-Series, Saregama, Sony To Challenge OpenAI In Copyright Lawsuit in Delhi High Court

Microsoft-backed company’s legal challenges are mounting not only globally, but also in India, its second-biggest market

India's top Bollywood music labels, T-Series, Saregama and Sony, are looking to join a copyright lawsuit against OpenAI in the Delhi High Court.

The Indian Music Industry (IMI) group was concerned about the ‘unauthorized use of sound recordings’ to train artificial intelligence (Al) models, breaching their copyright. The companies maintained their contentions were crucial for the music industry in India and worldwide.

They were concerned that OpenAI and other Al systems could extract lyrics, music compositions and sound recordings from the internet.

However, the Microsoft-backed company claimed to follow fair-use principles in employing publicly available data to build its AI models.

The music labels are contemplating joining last year’s lawsuit by news agency ANI, accusing OpenAI's ChatGPT application of using its content without permission.

Book publishers and media groups, some backed by billionaires Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani, also opposed the company in the Delhi court.

While Bollywood and Hindi pop music are a big business in India, T-Series is one of the largest music record labels, releasing 2,000 songs annually.

Similarly, Saregama, over 100 years old, owns a repertoire of famed Indian singers including Mohammed Rafi and Lata Mangeshkar. The IMI group represents global names Sony Music and Warner Music.

In November last, Germany's GEMA, which represents composers, lyricists and publishers, had sued OpenAI for ChatGPT's alleged unlicensed reproduction of song lyrics, stating that ‘the system has obviously been trained.’

Meanwhile, OpenAI is dealing with new challenges from Chinese startup DeepSeek's breakthrough in cheap Al computing.

OpenAI opposed the ANI lawsuit on the grounds that Indian courts lacked jurisdiction, as the company was US-based, with servers abroad.

The next hearing in the lawsuit has been scheduled for 21 February. It will hopefully shape the future of how Al models use copyright content in India.