ANI summons OpenAI over Copyright Issue

The Delhi High Court continued hearing the copyright infringement case filed by Asian News International (ANI) against Open AI, focusing on whether the AI platform’s use of ANI’s content, including news reports and interview material, amounts to copyright violation. Due to this case, a significant debate has been sparked regarding the boundaries of copyright protection for factual content in this rising trend of artificial intelligence.

In its defence, OpenAI argued that the protection granted to news reports under copyright laws is inherently limited. They emphasized that new content, being factual in nature, serves the public’s right to access information and should therefore have limited copyright safeguards. It also stated that what is protected under copyright law is the unique expression of facts, not the facts or ideas themselves. In the case of news, which is meant for broad dissemination, public interest in spreading information outweighs the protection of the exact expression, thereby making it harder to claim copyright infringement.

In response to claims of content reproduction made by ANI, the defence contended that ChatGPT does not copy or reproduce content verbatim. Instead of that the AI system generates unique responses for each prompt, and no cases of direct reproduction has been shown, even after numerous prompts, including those from some globally known entities like The New York Times. The defence also noted that ChatGPT is mainly designed to avoid replicating the exact wording of any publicly available work.

In addition, the Court highlighted the issue of content reuse from exclusive interviews. The defence argued that journalists do not own the facts or statements shared during interviews and only the unique narrative, expression or way of presentation can be protected under copyright. Paraphrasing interviews can’t be considered as an act of infringement unless the copying is so blatant that it could be considered piracy.

Regarding attribution, the defence maintained that ChatGPT clearly provides credit to sources and does not hide the origin of information. However, the counsel of ANI disagreed upon it and argued that attribution was not consistently visible in cited examples and that the defense of summarizing  interviews should be restricted to journalists. The case will be further scheduled for next hearing on 29 April 2025.

The case resumes on April 29, the Delhi High Court will further examine more deeply about the application of copyright law applied to AI responses and exclusive media content.

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