HC seeks OpenAI reply on publishers' groups intervening in copyright suit
This story was originally published at 14:32 IST on 28 January 2025
Register to read our real-time news.Informist, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025
NEW DELHI – The Delhi High Court Tuesday sought artificial intelligence research organisation OpenAI, Inc.'s reply to applications filed by the Federation of Indian Publishers and the Digital News Publishers Association seeking to intervene in a copyright infringement suit filed against the California-based company. The high court was hearing a suit filed by ANI Media Pvt. Ltd., alleging that OpenAI was training its generative AI chatbot ChatGPT with material that had the news agency's copyright.
The Federation of Indian Publishers said ChatGPT produces book summaries and extracts from unlicensed online copies, which hurts the business of its members. OpenAI has used its members' literary works without authorisation to train ChatGPT, the federation said. The Digital News Publishers Association, which represents the digital arms of several mainstream television and print organisations in India, has highlighted concerns about the unauthorised mass copying and use of copyrighted works to train AI models, including OpenAI's Generative Pre-trained Transformer model.
At the outset, the court asked the digital publishers' association why it had not filed a separate suit instead of intervening in the current case. Advocate Amit Sibal, appearing for OpenAI, argued that the Federation of Indian Publishers had no claim and no authorisation to file the intervention application. "They are alleging we are going behind paywalls to get access to matters not publicly available. The book publishers and journal publishers have a different issue from ANI," Sibal said.
Sibal also raised the issue of jurisdiction in the case. OpenAI said Indian courts do not have the jurisdiction to hear litigation against it. Neither OpenAI nor the cause of action falls within the territorial jurisdiction of Indian courts, the California-based company said. OpenAI said ChatGPT's servers and training data are located outside India, and the accessibility of the service within India does not automatically confer jurisdiction.
The high court said the scope of the suit would not be advanced by the intervenors. Further, it said the aspect of territorial jurisdiction would be considered while deciding the application for interim injunction filed by ANI.
The court set the next hearings for Feb. 21, Mar. 11, and Mar. 18. This is the first copyright infringement suit in India against ChatGPT. End
Reported by Surya Tripathi
Edited by Rajeev Pai
For users of real-time market data terminals, Informist news is available exclusively on the NSE Cogencis WorkStation.
Cogencis news is now Informist news. This follows the acquisition of Cogencis Information Services Ltd by NSE Data & Analytics Ltd, a 100% subsidiary of the National Stock Exchange of India Ltd. As a part of the transaction, the news department of Cogencis has been sold to Informist Media Pvt Ltd.
Informist Media Tel +91 (11) 4220-1000
Send comments to feedback@informistmedia.com
© Informist Media Pvt. Ltd. 2025. All rights reserved.
To read more please subscribe
Share this Story:
