Delhi High Court Declines Immediate Restraint on OpenAI in ANI Copyright Dispute
The Delhi High Court on Tuesday declined to grant an immediate injunction against OpenAI, refusing to restrain the artificial intelligence giant from utilizing news content from the Asian News International (ANI) for the training of its ChatGPT model. A division bench comprising Justices Avneesh Jhingan and Manmeet PS Arora maintained that the court would not pass any ex-parte orders without first hearing the arguments from the defendant.
The matter comes before the division bench as an appeal filed by ANI, which is challenging a July 24 decision by a single-judge bench. In that previous ruling, the court had dismissed ANI’s plea for a temporary injunction, concluding that OpenAI’s reliance on the agency’s material to train its generative AI systems fell under the ambit of the “fair dealing” exception provided within Indian copyright law.
The Legal Tug-of-War
During the proceedings, Advocate Siddhant Kumar, representing ANI, requested that the court enforce a status quo. He highlighted that from September 2024 up until the July 24 judgment, OpenAI had voluntarily agreed to refrain from scraping data from the news agency’s web portal. Counsel urged the bench to direct the AI firm to continue this arrangement while the appeal remained pending.
The division bench, however, opted against imposing such a restriction at this stage. Instead, the court issued a formal notice to OpenAI and scheduled the next hearing for December 5. This move ensures that the legal arguments regarding AI training protocols and copyright protections will be vetted thoroughly by both parties before any potential restrictions are considered.
ANI’s Allegations of Infringement
In its formal appeal, ANI has asserted that the single-judge bench failed to adequately weigh OpenAI’s own admissions regarding the scraping, storage, and commercial exploitation of the agency’s original news content. According to the petition, these actions constitute a clear violation of the news agency’s exclusive rights granted under the Copyright Act. These protected rights include the agency’s authority to store, reproduce, adapt, and translate its original journalistic works.
Furthermore, ANI contended that the lower court’s reliance on the “fair dealing” defense was misapplied. The agency argued that the ruling effectively broadened the scope of this statutory exception—which is traditionally reserved for private use and academic research—to a degree that it now paradoxically permits the large-scale commercial exploitation of copyrighted material.
Implications for AI and Media
This case is being closely watched by both the media and the burgeoning AI industry in India. It highlights a critical intersection between the rapid evolution of Large Language Models (LLMs) and the protection of intellectual property. As news organizations globally grapple with how their content is being ingested by AI companies to generate synthetic responses, the Delhi High Court’s eventual verdict is expected to set a significant precedent for how copyright law balances the progress of transformative technology against the economic and proprietary rights of content creators.
For now, the legal battle remains in its preliminary appellate stage, with the court signaling a commitment to a balanced, adversarial process before determining whether the practices of global AI firms cross the line of legal copyright infringement.
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