Delhi High Court Sues OpenAI's ChatGPT Owner ANI Over Copyright Infringement

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court has issued a summons to ChatGPT owner OpenAI, marking the first time the company has been sued by an Indian publisher over copyright infringement. This comes after news agency ANI filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging that its large language models are using its original content without proper attribution.

ANI has sought damages of Rs 2 crore and a permanent injunction to prevent OpenAI from storing, publishing, or reproducing its work. The news agency claims that OpenAI's AI models like ChatGPT are perpetuating the spread of fake news by providing false attributions to publishers in response to prompts on certain topics.

India is not the only country where ANI has taken legal action against OpenAI. Globally, several news publications have sued the company for copyright infringement and using their content to train its large language models.

Amit Sibal, appearing for OpenAI, argued that ANI's suit was the first case against ChatGPT in India, despite there being 13 lawsuits outside the country since 2022. Sibal claimed that OpenAI does not reproduce any material in India and trains its models abroad, without accessing anything illegally.

The court has appointed an amicus curiae to consider the issue of copyright infringement related to AI models like ChatGPT, who use publicly available content from news agencies and publications.

The hearing was also addressed by Electronics and IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, who flagged concerns about intellectual property violations by generative AI platforms. He questioned the rights and recognition of original creators whose work is used to train these models without compensation or acknowledgment.

A final date for further consideration has been set for January 28.