ANI v. OpenAI in the Delhi HC: Everything so far and all that is at stake
On March 18, 2025, the Delhi High Court will continue hearing a copyright infringement case filed by Asian News International against OpenAI for allegedly using ANI’s content to train ChatGPT. Four intervenors, two amici curiae and a litigation for the coming ages - here is all you need to know about what is at stake.
Harsh Gour
Published on: 17 March 2025, 03:34 pm
ON February 12, 2025, OpenAI filed a 31-page reply before the Delhi High Court, which is currently hearing India’s first lawsuit against AI-driven content usage.
The case was filed by Asian News International (‘ANI’), an Indian news agency, alleging that OpenAI used its copyrighted news content without authorisation to train its large language model (LLM), Artificial Intelligence chatbot ChatGPT.
ANI contends that OpenAI had no right to use its content for profit, even if the material was freely accessible online. The agency is seeking ₹2 crore in damages and an injunction to prevent OpenAI from further using its content. This case spotlights the ongoing conflict between the intellectual property rights of content creators and AI companies' use of publicly available data for model learning.
The next hearing for this case is scheduled for March 18, 2025.
ANI asserts that OpenAI ignored its request for a licensing agreement, which could have legitimised the usage of ANI’s content.
Background
Asian News International (ANI), alleging unauthorised use of its copyrighted news content to train OpenAI’s Large Language Model (LLM), ChatGPT, when it discovered that ChatGPT was generating responses that contained excerpts from its proprietary news articles without authorization.
Following this, ANI approached the Delhi High Court and filed a copyright infringement suit in November 2024. The matter was listed before the court, where ANI sought an injunction to prevent OpenAI from further using its news content and demanded damages for the alleged unauthorized usage.
ANI asserts that OpenAI ignored its request for a licensing agreement, which could have legitimised the usage of ANI’s content.
It maintains that OpenAI must comply with copyright laws and compensate content creators fairly for the use of journalistic material.
The defendant, OpenAI Inc., a San Francisco-based AI firm, developer of ChatGPT and other AI-driven systems, trains its models on publicly available online content. It, however, denies any wrongdoing, arguing that its technology does not replicate specific articles but generates responses by analyzing linguistic patterns across large datasets.
It further contends that since it trains on publicly available internet data, it does not require permission to use such material. However, similar concerns over AI training data and content scraping have led to legal action against OpenAI by The New York Times in 2023.
