The Delhi High Court on Tuesday rejected OpenAI’s request to first determine its jurisdiction before proceeding with the copyright infringement suit filed by news agency Asian News International (ANI). The lawsuit alleges that OpenAI has unlawfully used ANI’s original news content.
Justice Amit Bansal stated that arguments on jurisdiction would be heard alongside the merits of the case and scheduled the final hearing for February 21.
“Mr. Sibal, I will not decide jurisdiction as a preliminary issue. It will be part of the arguments,” Justice Bansal told senior advocate Amit Sibal, who appeared for OpenAI.
Sibal had contested the court’s jurisdiction over the case and urged that this issue be settled before further proceedings. Seeking the dismissal of ANI’s lawsuit, he argued that only courts in California had the exclusive authority to adjudicate the copyright infringement claims. He further contended that Indian courts lacked jurisdiction over ANI’s allegations that OpenAI used the news agency’s content to train its large language model (LLM), as the servers involved were located outside India.
The case is being closely followed, as its outcome could play a crucial role in shaping copyright law in the digital era, setting a precedent for the protection of original news content against unauthorized use by AI-driven platforms.
During the proceedings, the court also issued a notice regarding an application filed by digital divisions of three major news organizations—HT Digital Streams (HT Media), IE Online Media Services (Express Group), and NDTV Convergence—along with the industry body Digital News Publishers Association. They sought to intervene in the copyright case. Despite OpenAI’s objection that their involvement would broaden the scope of the suit, Justice Bansal directed the company to submit its response within two weeks.
ANI’s lawsuit seeks to restrain OpenAI from using its content on ChatGPT and demands the deletion of any stored ANI material. The agency alleges that OpenAI has exploited its original content for commercial gain, using it to train its AI model without acquiring proper licensing or permission. ANI is also seeking ₹2 crore in damages, accusing OpenAI of not only unauthorized copying and storage but also misattributing news content to the agency.
On November 19, the High Court issued summons in the case but declined to immediately prohibit OpenAI from publishing ANI’s content, noting that the platform had already blocklisted ANI’s domain in October to prevent further use of its material.
The court also appointed advocate Adarsh Ramanujan and Dr. Arul George Scaria, a professor of law at the National Law School of India University (NLSIU), as amicus curiae, recognizing that the lawsuit raises “novel legal issues” related to emerging technology.
The court framed four key issues:
- Whether it has jurisdiction to hear the case, given that OpenAI’s servers are based in the United States.
- Whether ChatGPT’s storage of ANI’s data for training its model constitutes copyright infringement.
- Whether generating responses using ANI’s copyrighted content amounts to infringement.
- Whether OpenAI’s use of ANI’s copyrighted data qualifies as fair use under Section 52 of the Copyright Act, 1957, which permits limited use of copyrighted material for purposes such as criticism, commentary, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research.
On January 10, Joint Registrar Ajay Gulati issued notice in an application filed by the Federation of Indian Publishers (FIP), which also sought to intervene in ANI’s case. FIP argued that OpenAI was using its original literary works to train LLMs. OpenAI opposed FIP’s application, asserting in an affidavit that its web crawlers did not access proprietary material behind paywalls.
During Tuesday’s hearing, the court took exception to the circulation of pleadings in the media before they were reviewed by the court. This came after Sibal pointed to multiple news reports on FIP’s application and OpenAI’s response. Justice Bansal indicated that there should be no unnecessary reporting on the submissions made by the parties, stating, “We will ask them to exercise restraint. That I am indicating. No unnecessary reporting at least on the submissions of parties.”
