Russian AI Alliance asks Duma to allow training on publicly available works; Mincifry rejects retroactive payments

The AI Alliance — uniting Sber, Yandex, VK, MTS, Beeline, T-Bank and Gazprom Neft — sent a letter to State Duma committee chairman Pavel Krasheninnikov proposing to enshrine in the Civil Code the right to train neural networks on lawfully obtained or publicly available works, unless the rights holder has applied technical restrictions. The letter opposes draft amendments that would treat AI training as use of copyrighted works with mandatory payments, arguing they would disadvantage Russian developers against foreign competitors. Separately, Mincifry declined to support retroactive compensation to rights holders in the current drafting.