ANI claims that ChatGPT is using its content without permission, not just from ANI’s website but also from its subscribers who pay for ANI’s news services.
NEW DELHI: Today, 18th March: The Delhi High Court heard a case where Asian News International (ANI) accused OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, of violating its copyright.
ANI claims that ChatGPT is using its content without permission, not just from ANI’s website but also from its subscribers who pay for ANI’s news services.
ALSO READ: [ANI vs. OpenAI] OpenAI Challenges Delhi High Court’s Jurisdiction in Copyright Case
ANI’s lawyer, Advocate Sidhant Kumar, argued before Justice Amit Bansal that OpenAI is copying ANI’s news articles and using them to train ChatGPT. He pointed out that ANI’s content is also shared with paying subscribers, like The Economic Times (ET), and taking ANI’s news from ET also counts as copyright infringement.
“While they crawl from my (ANI’s) website, they also crawl material from my subscribers. While they say that they don’t take content from me, they are taking from my subscribers. I do not cease to have control over copyright. I don’t divest control … Merely because I have licensed contact content for public viewing by a person who has paid subscription or a license fee, I do not cease to have control over that content,” Kumar argued.
He further explained that while basic facts cannot be copyrighted, the way those facts are written in a news article is protected under copyright laws.
“They (OpenAI) state that facts cannot be copyrighted, the narration can be. I cannot have a monopoly over reporting that particular fact, but I certainly do have a monopoly over reporting that fact in that manner. Expression is capable of copyright protection. When I publish an article which is authored by my journalists, weighted by my editors, there is a particular way in which I will narrate,” he said.
Kumar also accused OpenAI of copying content from ANI’s interviews and translations without permission. He stated that ANI owns intellectual property rights over its translated interviews, and ChatGPT using them is a clear violation.
“I have independent intellectual property on translations. Our interviews are carried out by other subscribers, but we hold rights in it,” he said
Senior Advocate Amit Sibal, representing OpenAI, countered ANI’s claims by saying that facts are universal, and different people writing about the same facts will naturally have similarities.
“When the facts are narrated by someone else, there will always be a similarity, which comes from the fact that the facts are common between the two narrations,” Sibal argued.
He also defended ChatGPT by explaining that it only summarizes information available online and even directs users to the original sources.
Sibal further pointed out that ANI is not a newspaper but a news agency that collects and shares news. He explained that OpenAI has licensing deals with established newspapers that allow it to use their content.
“We have license with Financial Times, where they wish for us to promote their content, they give us a license to reproduce their content. Plaintiff (ANI) is not a newspaper. It only collects information. Financial Times is a newspaper with which I have a license in place,” he stated.
The case will be heard again on March 28, 2024. The court has already issued summons to OpenAI, and two experts, Advocates Adarsh Ramanujan and Dr. Arul George Scaria, have been appointed as amicus curiae (neutral legal advisors) to assist in the case.
Case Title:
ANI Media Pvt Ltd v OpenAI Inc (CS COMM 1028/2024)
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