Delhi HC seeks OpenAI reply on ANI plea to temporarily restrain ChatGPT from using its content

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday sought OpenAI's response to the appeal by news agency Asian News International (ANI) against a single-judge's order denying it interim relief in its copyright infringement suit against OpenAI, the owner of ChatGPT. .A Bench of Justices Avneesh Jhingan and Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora issued notice on the appeal.The matter will be heard next on December 5..ANI is the first Indian media house to sue OpenAI for copyright violation. In a suit filed in 2024, ANI alleged unauthorised use of its content by OpenAI to train and operate ChatGPT. As interim relief, ANI sought an injunction against OpenAI from storing, publishing, reproducing or using its copyrighted content.In July this year, however, single judge Bench of the Court refused to grant ANI such interim relief, holding that it would be against public interest.The single-judge, Justice Amit Bansal, held that OpenAI's storage of news material published by ANI to train ChatGPT did not appear to be copyright infringement. He added that irreparable injury would be caused not only to OpenAI but to public interest as well if any interim injunction is granted in favour of ANI.ANI has challenged this single-judge interim order before a Division Bench of the High Court. It is ANI's case that India has fair dealing, not fair use, a closed list of purposes in Section 52 of the Copyright Act and that reading commercial exploitation at scale into "private or personal use, including research" widens that exception beyond what Parliament wrote.The agency has said that the single-judge's finding that an injunction would harm AI development and the public sits uneasily with OpenAI's own pleading that ANI's content is a minuscule fraction of its training data. Further, ANI argues that OpenAI licenses news content for training and distribution from publishers including the Financial Times. If the use is fair dealing, it is hard to see what those licences are for and the existence of that market is precisely what fairness analysis is meant to weigh, it has been stated..Representing ANI, advocate Sidhant Kumar today submitted that OpenAI had earlier undertaken, as an interim arrangement, not to scrape any content from ANI's website. “From 11 September 2024 till the passing of the impugned order, a certain status was obtained, which was that they were not downloading or scraping content from my website. That statement was made. They volunteered that they will not take news content from my website,” said Kumar.The Court, however, indicated that it is not inclined to issue any directions to OpenAI about this arrangement today, without first hearing its response..Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal appeared for an intervenor, Broadband India Forum and urged the Division Bench to hear the forum as well. “The single judge heard us. We need to be heard. This has global implications,” he said. “Are you an impleaded party? Can you be a party at every stage. Please assist on next date. Let’s see what the law states,” the Bench replied. .Senior Advocate Arvind Datar, also representing the Broadband India Forum, said that a formal intervening application would be filed. After issuing OpenAI notice, the Court proceeded to list the matter in December. .Injunction against ChatGPT would hurt Indian AI development, users: Delhi HC differs with DPIIT white paper