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Alliance Center for
Intellectual Property Rights


OPENAI V. ASIAN NEWS INTERNATIONAL: A COPYRIGHT DISPUTE

February 15, 2025

*Ms. Vaishnavi N

INTRODUCTION

The allegations by ANI, a news agency claiming ChatGPT’s creator, OpenAI has potentially violated their Intellectual Property by using the copyrighted content, have led to the building tension around infringement and exploitation concerns for the issue purporting to both reasons, commercial and non-commercial. This, followed by the news of the issue of summons to Open AI by the Delhi High Court, draws attention towards the matter of third-party content usage by this AI tool and has raised important copyright questions, especially regarding attribution that is, acknowledging or crediting the holder of copyright and adhering to legislative requirements alongside the much-debated ethical aspects of content creation.

CLAIMS OF ANI

Being the first publishers in India to bring an action against infringement by an AI tool for the purpose of training its bot, the counsel representing ANI has contended that although the content is publicly accessible, OpenAI does not possess any such right to replicate or exploit it on a public platform while additionally also providing inaccurate information about the agency affecting its maintained accuracy.

KEY ISSUES AND RESPONSES

This legal issue on unauthorized use, has rooted from the allegation of response generation by the AI tool for the fact that the content either has, substantial similarity or same verbatim usage as that of ANI. However contrastingly, in no other law suits being or been faced by OpenAI has it received an order of injunction for a similar issue, and that has been used as a defence for stating that the laws of copyright protect no facts or ideas but only expression for that matter.

Such emphasis has been made to draw an inference that OpenAI provides that websites may block access to it and for the afore-stated factor, there cannot be any monopoly over facts which leads to prove that there is no infringement but merely a fair-use. To the question of copying is not of idea but the expression, the response came in to state that such AI only collects data from various sources but the response generated is not constructed on any database as such.

DATA STORAGE AND TRANSPARENCY CONCERNS

The issue of storage of this alleged data which is yet to be dealt, has been rebutted, for it is taken as a content publicly available and that the operation of AI is transparent enough to not cause doubt in the minds of public in reference to both data disclosure and usage practices. Additionally, such storage is not of the manner allowing the reproduction of the content in its exact form during the interactions and thus is argued to be non-infringement.

CASE DEVELOPMENTS

Defending its position while agreeing with the commission of occasional errors, OpenAI claims it has promptly perfected their results in an active manner, over the time. Lastly, raising a significant objection over ANI’s cause of action, the defendant has stated that it does not possess any servers in India and thus, can have no question of producing the content of ANI in such jurisdiction. Although the objection was noted, the court allowed for hearing of this issue in the coming days and has appointed amicus curiae to assist in this matter, for consideration of all the relevant factors.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

This raises crucial concerns, both for the legal professionals as well as the technology experts to closely monitor the content of AI against that of other data providers in question. The fact of the dispute outlining the assessment of whether the replication is of a mere idea or the expression itself, being still at the deciding stage, emphasizes the need for a clearer line between the two, to draw inferences for allowing the data usage or otherwise. The decision supposedly is set to impact the subsequent practices as for the content creation is concerned, which thus, has the weight to care about reinforcing a refined balance between the copyright protection, attribution concerns and innovation.

REFERENCES:

  1. Bhavini Srivastava, ChatGPT violates copyright when it scrapes content from news agency subscribers: ANI to Delhi High Court, BAR AND BENCH (Mar. 18, 2025, 05:23 PM), ttps://www.barandbench.com/news/litigation/chatgpt-violates-copyright-when-it-scrapes-content-news-agency-subscribers-ani-delhi-high-court.
  2. Monalisha Sethi, [ANI vs. OpenAI] “Unauthorized Use of Its Original News Content”: HC Summons OpenAI for Copyright Violation Allegations, LAWCHAKRA (Nov. 19, 2024, 01:06 PM), https://lawchakra.in/high-court/ani-vs-openai-summons-copyright-violation/.
  3. Vaishali Mittal, ANI v OpenAI: A copyright, AI training and false attribution dispute, ASIA BUSINESS LAW JOURNAL (Mar. 18, 2025, 11:56 PM), https://law.asia/ani-vs-openai-legal-case/.
  4. Arpan Chaturvedi and Munsif Vengattil, Indian news agency ANI sues OpenAI for unsanctioned content use in AI training, REUTERS (Nov. 20, 2024, 10:53 AM GMT+5:30), https://www.reuters.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/indian-news-agency-ani-sues-openai-unsanctioned-content-use-ai-training-2024-11-19/.
  5. Nilima Pathak, Indian News Publishers File Suit Against ChatGPT’s OpenAI in Delhi High Court, LEGAL ERA (Jan. 27, 2025, 03:30 PM), https://www.legaleraonline.com/from-the-courts/indian-news-publishers-file-suit-against-chatgpts-openai-in-delhi-high-court-940153.
  6. Nupur Thapliyal, Delhi High Court Issues Summons in ANI's Copyright Infringement Suit Against OpenAI's ChatGPT, LIVE LAW (Nov. 19, 2024, 12:38 PM), https://www.livelaw.in/high-court/delhi-high-court/delhi-high-court-issues-summons-in-anis-copyright-infringement-suit-against-openai-chatgpt-275633.

Author:
* Ms. Vaishnavi N
3rd Year B. A. LL. B. (Hons.) Student,
Alliance School of Law, Alliance University.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in the article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of the Alliance Centre for Intellectual Property Rights (ACIPR) and the Centre does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.