Today, On 22nd April, OpenAI told the Delhi High Court that news reports have limited copyright protection. It replied in the ANI vs ChatGPT case, saying using ANI’s news to answer user queries may not be copyright infringement.
New Delhi: OpenAI, the owner of ChatGPT, informed the Delhi High Court on Tuesday that copyright protection for news reporting is quite limited, as there is a greater public interest in the dissemination of information.
This statement was made before a bench led by Justice Amit Bansal during the hearing of Asian News International (ANI)’s copyright infringement lawsuit against OpenAI.
Also Read: ANI vs OpenAI: Delhi High Court Hears Copyright Infringement Case Against ChatGPT
Senior Advocate Amit Sibal argued on behalf of ChatGPT,
“There may be similarity in facts, ideas, names, places but the expression is different. And all that copyright [law] protects is the expression, and much more so in the case of news, the copyright protection is narrow because of all things news is further to be disseminated. There is a greater public interest in dissemination of the ideas and facts that are involved in news reporting. But news reporting has more than ideas and facts, no difficulty. It may be copyrightable, but what is copyrighted is the expression,”
Sibal further explained that the level of protection varies depending on the nature of the work. He provided an example to illustrate this point.
Sibal stated,
“If someone plagiarizes the latest novel of Chetan Bhagat, the test is different because it is fiction, not fact. But where somebody gives their own version of what is narrated in a news article or news report, then the level of protection is much narrower because of the twin objectives to incentivize creation and promote dissemination of new works,”
Sibal was addressing whether OpenAI’s use of ANI’s copyrighted data to generate responses for users would constitute copyright infringement by the news agency.
This question was framed by the Court to evaluate ANI’s request for interim relief while its lawsuit is pending.
Also Read: DNPA Joins ANI’s Fight Against OpenAI Over Unauthorized Use of News Content
In his arguments, Sibal contended that ChatGPT does not replicate or reproduce original works. He emphasized that each response generated for the same prompt is unique.
He noted,
“Thousands of prompts have been attempted, not just by this plaintiff, but also by the New York Times in the United States, and still no instance of reproduction has been shown despite utmost attempts,”
Sibal further stated that ChatGPT is designed not to regurgitate or reproduce the expression of any specific publicly available work.
He presented examples cited by ANI to support its claim of copyright infringement and pointed out that ANI had structured prompts to elicit exact copies of their reporting.
He argued,
“In the prompt itself, there is an extract of the headline of the article. This is more akin to the plaintiff saying, ‘please give me my work,'”
During the proceedings, the Court inquired whether excerpts from an exclusive interview could be reproduced by others.
Justice Bansal asked,
“If he [the journalist] has invested resources to secure this interview, even if your words differ or you’re paraphrasing, the question is, how do you gain the right to reproduce his interview for which he hired reporters or invested money and resources?”
Sibal responded by explaining that articles written by other journalists often include quotes from exclusive interviews.
He stated,
“When another journalist reads that [interview] and narrates it in his own words in an article, it cannot be considered infringement. However, if he plagiarizes it to the point that an ordinary reader would recognize it as blatant piracy, then certainly… but if he puts it in his own words, he can convey whatever is in the article,”
Sibal also pointed out that an interviewer does not own the facts revealed by an interviewee.
He argued,
“If a person interviews someone and gains access to ideas for the first time, he does not gain authorship or protection over those ideas or facts. However, his effort and skill in expressing that information in a narrative does receive limited protection,”
At this point, advocate Sidhant Kumar for ANI remarked that such exceptions allowing narration or reporting on exclusive interviews would only apply to media professionals or journalists.
Sibal countered that the first issue here is whether there is any infringement under Section 14 of the Copyright Act.
Kumar stated,
“That defense is not available to everyone,”
Sibal also argued that copyright in quotes belongs to the speaker or interviewee.
He said,
“Exclusive interviews are even more complex. Because in an exclusive interview, the copyright in the quotes is owned by the speaker, not the journalist. There is no originality on the part of the journalist,”
The issue of attribution was also discussed during the hearing. The Court asked whether giving credit could justify using the exact expressions used by a media organization.
Also Read: [ANI vs. OpenAI] OpenAI Challenges Delhi High Court’s Jurisdiction in Copyright Case
Sibal replied that on ChatGPT, the expressions would never be identical to those used by the media organization. At this point, Kumar noted that similar attribution was lacking in the examples he provided.
The Court then commented that ChatGPT is a work in progress. Kumar agreed that technology is indeed dynamic. Meanwhile, Sibal mentioned that attribution is present in the examples cited by ANI.
He added,
“There is no attempt to hide the source of information or facts,”
Sibal will continue his arguments on April 29.
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