OpenAI told the Delhi High Court that copyright law protects original expression, not public facts or ideas. ChatGPT argued ANI’s claims don’t meet the legal test for infringement.
New Delhi: On Tuesday, the Delhi High Court heard an important case where ANI Media Pvt Ltd has accused ChatGPT, an AI-based language model, of copyright infringement. ChatGPT is developed by OpenAI, and the case brings up big legal questions about how copyright law applies to artificial intelligence.
OpenAI, through its lawyers, told the court that copyright law only protects the way something is created and expressed, not the ideas or facts behind it. In other words, if something is just a known fact or idea, and not someone’s unique creative work, then it cannot be protected under copyright.
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The matter was taken up by the bench of Justice Amit Bansal. He said that the court will look at the issue as per the overall law and not just the small technical points. The court noted all the submissions made and has now listed the case for the next hearing on May 16, 2025.
Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal, who joined the hearing virtually, appeared for the Broadband India Forum. This forum is an independent body that works with the government and other groups to promote better internet and broadband policy in India.
In the hearing, Senior Advocate Amit Sibal started his arguments and made it clear that there is no copyright on just quotations. He said that under Indian copyright law, there is a clear difference between ideas and facts, which are in the public domain, and expressions of those ideas.
He explained that just using or arranging facts does not become copyright infringement unless it copies someone’s unique way of expressing those facts. According to him, copyright law is meant to protect “creation, not discovery.”
He also said that ChatGPT does not copy ANI’s words or style, but creates entirely new content using statistical models. He added that the model was trained only till a particular date, and for any information after that date, ChatGPT uses data from Microsoft’s search engine and always gives proper credit.
Senior Advocate Amit Sibal said,
“It is an LLM and not a search engine, and so when it gives information post the cut off date, it also provides a link to the source along with attribution,”
He further explained that ANI had not shown any real “substantial similarity” between its content and ChatGPT’s outputs, which is necessary to prove copyright infringement in court. Even if there is some level of similarity or access, the law still requires proof that what was copied is significantly similar to the original.
he submitted,
“Probative similarity is used to determine if copying has occurred, while substantial similarity is used to determine if the copying is substantial enough to be considered actionable infringement,”
Regarding how ChatGPT was trained, Senior Advocate Amit Sibal admitted that copies of data were made during training. But he clarified that only the non-creative parts such as grammar, sentence structure, facts, and knowledge patterns were taken—things that are not protected under copyright.
He gave an example by saying that a simple sentence like “the moon is the Earth’s only natural satellite” was broken into its parts like subject, verb, and object, which the model learns logically and not as a copied sentence.
He strongly argued that copyright law was never meant to stop machines or anyone from using common language or facts. The act of copying data during training was only a technical process, not meant to be shown to people, and so it does not count as a copyright violation under Section 14 of the Copyright Act.
He also said that the meaning of the word “storage” in Section 14(1)(a) should not be read literally. Instead, it should be interpreted in a way that fits with today’s technology. He pointed out that courts in the past have agreed with such practical understandings of law.
he argued,
“Before the invention of the photocopier, students would have to copy by hand – if copying by hand was permissible, how could using a photocopier be impermissible?”
He then explained the technical terms like “tokenization” and “vectorization”. These are ways that machines break down human language so they can understand and process it. He said these processes do not amount to copying or adapting someone’s original content.
When the court asked if using ANI’s content could come under “fair use”, Senior Advocate Amit Sibal agreed and said yes. He said that even under fair-dealing rules, ChatGPT’s use would be legal. He also noted that ANI had not shown any proof that ChatGPT had harmed their business or market.
He further said that ChatGPT gives clear warnings and disclaimers about the accuracy of its answers. It does not claim to be a news agency or a final source of truth. Users are always told to verify the information on their own.
Lastly, he pointed out that while ChatGPT is accessible in India, it does not have any office or direct business operation here. He compared it to companies like Amazon that do operate directly in India and follow Indian laws accordingly.
Sibal today argued that ChatGPT drives traffic to ANI’s website, and there has been no allegation that any commercial harm is being caused to the news agency.
“ChatGPT has been around for 3 years. The plaintiff has given no evidence given to show that his revenue has reduced, there is no averment also. We are not competing in a news syndication service. We caution that it is not reliable information.”
The legal team for ANI included 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, Gautam Wadhwa, Moha Paranjpe, Vanshika Thapliyal, Ankit Handa, Darpan Sachdeva, Saksham Dhingra, and Rajat Bector.
The intervenors, including Broadband India Forum, were represented by Advocates Ameet Datta, Ayush Hoonka, Riddima, Naimish Tewari, Akshay Natrajan, and Harsh Kaushik.
Case Title:
ANI Media Pvt Ltd v Open AI.
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