The Delhi High Court reserved judgment on Asian News International interim relief plea in its copyright suit against OpenAI. Justice Amit Bansal heard extensive submissions from parties, amici curiae, and intervenors before reserving orders.
NEW DELHI: After hearings spread over more than a year, the Delhi High Court reserved its judgment on Asian News International (ANI)’s interim relief application in its copyright infringement suit against OpenAI, the developer and operator of ChatGPT.
Justice Amit Bansal reserved judgment after listening to submissions from ANI, OpenAI, amici curiae and multiple intervenors.
Justice Bansal said,
“Arguments stand concluded. Accordingly, judgment is reserved,”
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ANI’s litigation is the first time an Indian media organisation has sued OpenAI for alleged copyright infringement.
The agency approached the court in 2024, alleging that OpenAI used its content without authorisation to train and run ChatGPT. In the interim relief petition, ANI sought an order restraining OpenAI from using its material.
ANI contended that public availability of its news does not grant OpenAI the right to exploit, copy or store that content.
OpenAI, however, argued that facts cannot be monopolised and suggested that any news outlet that does not want its site crawled by OpenAI can request to be placed on a blocklist.
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In November 2024 the court framed the following questions for determination:
- Whether the defendants’ [OpenAI] storing of the plaintiff’s [ANI] data (news content claimed to be protected under the Copyright Act, 1957) for training ChatGPT would constitute copyright infringement.
- Whether the defendants’ use of the plaintiff’s copyrighted material to generate responses for users would amount to infringement.
- Whether the defendants’ use of the plaintiff’s copyrighted data falls within ‘fair use’ under Section 52 of the Copyright Act, 1957.
- Whether Indian courts have jurisdiction to hear the suit given that the defendants’ servers are located in the United States.
Given the significance and novelty of the issues, the court appointed advocate Adarsh Ramanujan and Dr Arul George Scaria (Professor of Law, National Law School of India University) as amici curiae.
Several parties, including the Digital News Publishers Association (DNPA), later sought to intervene in the matter.
ANI was represented by Advocates Sidhant Kumar, Akshit Mago, Manyaa Chandok, Om Batra, Anshika Saxena and Shagun Chopra.
OpenAI was represented by Senior Advocate Amit Sibal along with Advocates Sanjeev Kapoor, Nirupam Lodha, Madhav Khosla, Moha Paranjpe, Gautam Wadhwa, Vanshika Thapliyal, Malika Nandkeolyar, Ankit Handa, Darpan Sachdeva, Rajat Bector and Saksham Dhingra.
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