Delhi High Court Denies Interim Relief to ANI in Copyright Suit Against OpenAI
In a significant ruling on Friday, the Delhi High Court determined that OpenAI’s use of news content from Asian News International (ANI) to train its AI model, ChatGPT, does not constitute copyright infringement. Consequently, the court refused to grant interim relief to ANI.
Justice Amit Bansal issued an interim order noting that OpenAI’s application of ANI’s content for training its Large Language Model (LLM) is permissible under the fair dealing provision of Section 52(1)(a) of the Copyright Act. The court further stated, “Therefore, it does not amount to infringement under Section 51.”
The court also addressed concerns about the Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) technique used by ChatGPT. It noted that the responses generated by this AI tool were not “substantially similar” to ANI’s original content, thus negating claims of copyright infringement. “Further, ANI has failed to satisfy this Court that any memorisation or regurgitation of ANI’s copyrighted literary works has happened to the responses generated by ChatGPT,” the court added.
Justice Bansal emphasized that granting an interim injunction would cause “irreparable injury” not only to OpenAI but also to the public interest. The court concluded that ANI did not establish a prima facie case for interim relief and that the balance of convenience was against granting the injunction.
ANI pioneered the legal action against OpenAI, marking the first instance of an Indian media outlet suing for copyright infringement related to AI training. The case was subsequently joined by other members of the Digital News Publishers Association (DNPA), including major media houses like The Times Group, Hindustan Times, and The Hindu.
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In their lawsuit filed in 2024, ANI accused OpenAI of unauthorized use of its content for training ChatGPT, seeking an injunction to prevent further use. ANI argued that public availability of its content did not grant OpenAI rights to exploit or store it. Conversely, OpenAI contended that facts cannot be monopolized and suggested that platforms unwilling to share their content could request to be blocklisted.
The court had previously framed several key issues for consideration, including whether OpenAI’s storage and use of ANI’s data for ChatGPT training infringed ANI’s copyright, and whether such use qualified as ‘fair use’ under Section 52 of the Copyright Act, 1957. Additionally, the court examined whether Indian courts have jurisdiction over the case given OpenAI’s servers are based in the United States.
Recognizing the case’s groundbreaking nature, the court appointed advocate Adarsh Ramanujan and Dr. Arul George Scaria, a law professor at the National Law School of India University, as amici curiae. After hearing extensive arguments, the court reserved its interim order on March 27, which was pronounced today.
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Advocates Sidhant Kumar, Akshit Mago, Manyaa Chandok, Anshika Saxena, and Lahar Jain from Unum Law represented ANI. Senior Advocate Amit Sibal, along with advocates Sanjeev Kapoor, Nirupam Lodha, Madhav Khosla, Moha Paranjpe, Gautam Wadhwa, Vanshika Thapliyal, Malika Nandkeolyar, Ankit Handa, Darpan Sachdeva, Rajat Bector, and Saksham Dhingra, appeared for OpenAI.
