Sonisha Srinivasan speaks to Dr. Zakir Thomas about the intersection of Generative AI with Copyright law and Policy, Technology Sovereignty, Open Access to information and the broader regulatory challenges shaping the future of AI.

About Dr. Zakir Thomas:Dr. Zakir Thomas has 35 years of experience of working in the Government of India as an officer of Indian Revenue Service had been instrumental in some of the major policy initiatives in field of intellectual property as a former Registrar of Copyrights and the Project Director of Open Source Drug Discovery Project. He holds an MSc (Physics), LLB (Delhi University) and Master of Intellectual Property, Commerce and Technology from Franklin Pierce Law Centre, University of New Hampshire, United States. He earned his PhD from the School of Social Sciences IGNOU, Delhi. He has authored several book chapters and articles in peer reviewed journals on Intellectual Property law and its interplay with open source innovation, pharmaceutical industry and copyright law. He was an invited faculty in WIPO seminars on Intellectual Property, delivered talks in the European Union Parliament, American Chemical Society and several other international fora. He was a faculty for a two credit course in NALSAR, Hyderabad. He has given talks in leading national institutions on copyright law, patent law and innovation. He has been the Indian delegate at WIPO and at the OECD tax forum. Dr Thomas is recipient of the Finance Ministers Award (2017), the highest honour conferred by the Income Tax department. Prior to retirement, he was Director General (Systems) of the Income Tax department, leading one of the largest e-governance projects in the country.All views expressed here by the speakers are in their personal capacity, and in general are to be considered as curious engagement with the subject at hand. If you want the formal language, then: This podcast is intended solely for informational and academic discussion purposes and does not constitute legal advice or create any attorney-client relationship.

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List of Additional Readings:-

Akshat Agrawal, ANI Media v. Open AI : The Opt-Out Strategy https://spicyip.com/2024/11/ani-media-v-open-ai-the-opt-out-strategy.html

Akshat Agrawal and Sneha Jain, Indian Copyright Law and Generative AI https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5028835

Goutham Rajeev and Vedant Bharadwaj Singh, Training GenAI: Infringement or Fair Use? https://spicyip.com/2024/04/training-genai-infringement-or-fair-use.html

Varsha Jhawar, An IP-Centric Approach towards AI Regulation in India- Part II https://spicyip.com/2023/05/an-ip-centric-approach-towards-ai-regulation-in-india-part-ii.html

US President Trump’s Executive Order, Removing Barriers To American Leadership In Artificial Intelligence https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/removing-barriers-to-american-leadership-in-artificial-intelligence/

Aman Gupta, Apple faces copyright lawsuit over training Apple Intelligence AI on pirated books: What we know so far https://www.livemint.com/technology/tech-news/apple-faces-copyright-lawsuit-over-training-apple-intelligence-ai-on-pirated-books-what-we-know-so-far-11757251724012.html

Jean Gil Barroca and Alfons Buxo, Cloud sovereignty: Three imperatives for the European public sector https://www.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/topics/technology-management/cloud-sovereignty-three-imperatives-for-the-european-public-sector.html

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Credits:

Swaraj Paul Barooah: Producer, Director, Editor

Sonisha Srinivasan: Host, Researcher, Editor

Anjali Tripathi: Thumbnail Art