Today, On 19th November, The Delhi High Court issued a summons to OpenAI following allegations by news agency ANI regarding the unauthorized use of its original content by ChatGPT. ANI claims that its copyrighted material was exploited without consent, violating intellectual property rights. The case highlights concerns surrounding generative AI tools and their use of third-party content for commercial and non-commercial purposes. The court’s intervention raises critical questions about attribution, copyright compliance, and ethical AI deployment in content creation.
New Delhi: News agency ANI reportedly filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, alleging unauthorized use of its original news content.
The case is set to be heard today, November 19, by Justice Amit Bansal in the Delhi High Court. ANI is poised to be one of the first Indian publishers to take legal action against an AI platform for infringing on its intellectual property rights.
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Advocate Sidhant Kumar, representing ANI, provided the court with an explanation of ChatGPT’s functionality. He argued that the chatbot utilizes the news agency’s copyrighted content for its training processes.
He stated that the news agency’s copyrighted material was being utilized to train the chatbot.
Kumar explained,
“The software is provided with all publicly available data, which includes copyrighted content. In this case, my content is part of the data used for training,”
Kumar contended that OpenAI does not have the right to exploit or replicate publicly available news content simply because it is accessible.
Additionally, ANI asserted that ChatGPT was attributing incorrect information to the agency.
Kumar argued,
“This service also falsely attributes statements to me. For instance, it claims that Rahul Gandhi, the Leader of Opposition, gave an interview to ANI when no such interview occurred. This not only threatens my rights but also contributes to the spread of misinformation,”
He further noted that OpenAI offered to block its website to prevent data collection by ChatGPT, but he expressed concerns about the practicality of this solution for a news wire, as its content can be reproduced by other websites or news organizations.
The court indicated that this specific issue would be reviewed later.
Justice Bansal clarified,
“The other concerns will be addressed by the court,”
ANI’s lawsuit marks the first instance of an Indian media organization suing OpenAI for alleged copyright infringement. Recently, The New York Times also filed a lawsuit against OpenAI over unauthorized use of its content for training, while Microsoft’s Copilot and Google’s Bard AI have faced similar legal challenges.
Senior Advocate Amit Sibal, representing OpenAI, argued before the Delhi High Court that ANI’s lawsuit is the first case against ChatGPT in India. He informed the court that OpenAI is facing 13 lawsuits in the United States, two in Canada, and one in Germany, but no court has issued an injunction against the chatbot.
Sibal clarified,
“There is no monopoly on facts. I am fully bona fide because from inception, I have provided that anyone who does not want their website accessed by me can get themselves put on a blocklist.”
He further noted that copyright laws do not protect ideas or facts and emphasized that no court outside India has found copyright infringement in how ChatGPT gathers information.
Addressing ANI’s claims, Sibal stated,
“OpenAI does not have servers in India and does not produce ANI’s content within the country. Therefore, in India, the plaintiff has no cause of action,”
He explained that ChatGPT collects data from various sources, with news being a minuscule proportion, and does not access a database to answer queries.
Responding to the court’s concerns about false information on ChatGPT, Sibal acknowledged that manipulated queries can lead to misleading responses but emphasized,
“In every instance they have raised that there is a misleading response, we have removed it.”
He defended the chatbot as a “force for good” while admitting it may not be perfect, adding that such instances are rare.
In its suit, ANI alleged that OpenAI exploits its original content for commercial gain by using it to train ChatGPT’s large-language model. The newswire also claimed that the AI chatbot reproduces its original content in responses and has attributed false information to ANI, posing risks to its reputation and potentially causing public disorder.
The lawsuit, filed by Delhi-based Unum Law on behalf of ANI, claims that OpenAI has exploited ANI’s content for commercial purposes in two ways: by using it to train its large language models (LLMs) and by generating responses that reproduce ANI’s content verbatim.
The report further states that the suit alleges OpenAI has made statements and published news without proper attribution to ANI, arguing that such practices threaten ANI’s reputation and could lead to the spread of misinformation, potentially causing public disorder.
OpenAI faced legal challenges from various global entities, including a notable lawsuit from Elon Musk, the founder of Starlink, in a federal court in Oakland, California. Musk claims that OpenAI and its major financial backer, Microsoft, have unlawfully attempted to monopolize the generative AI market, marginalizing competitors.
Earlier this year, concerns regarding the misuse of generative AI in India emerged when Google faced scrutiny from the IT ministry over certain responses from its LLM model, Gemini, related to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In response, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) issued an advisory requiring digital platforms to obtain approval before launching AI products in India.
However, this advisory was later rescinded following public backlash.
Additionally, a recent report from Inc42 highlights that at least 59% of enterprise-scale organizations in India are actively leveraging generative AI to drive their business growth.