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HC rejects OpenAI’s request to take call on jurisdiction first

Jan 29, 2025 07:32 AM IST

Justice Amit Bansal said that he would hear the arguments on the jurisdiction along with the merits, and fixed February 21 as the date when the court will finally start hearing the matter

The Delhi high court on Tuesday turned down Open AI’s request to first take a call on its jurisdiction to consider news agency Asian News International (ANI)’s copyright infringement suit, which has alleged unauthorised use of its original news content by the US-based firm.

On November 19, the high court issued summons in the suit but had refused to immediately restrain the platform from publishing ANI’s content, on being informed that the platform since October had blocklisted the news agency’s domain to prevent the use of new agency’s content by the AI chatbot. (HT Archive)
On November 19, the high court issued summons in the suit but had refused to immediately restrain the platform from publishing ANI’s content, on being informed that the platform since October had blocklisted the news agency’s domain to prevent the use of new agency’s content by the AI chatbot. (HT Archive)

Justice Amit Bansal said that he would hear the arguments on the jurisdiction along with the merits, and fixed February 21 as the date when the court will finally start hearing the matter.

“Mr Sibal, I am not going to decide jurisdiction as a preliminary issue. It will be a part of the arguments,” justice Bansal told senior advocate Amit Sibal, appearing for OpenAI.

This was after Sibal raised objections regarding the court’s jurisdiction to hear the suit and urged the court to decide this aspect before proceeding with the arguments. Seeking dismissal of the ANI’s suit, Sibal asserted that courts in California have the “exclusive jurisdiction” to consider the allegations of copyright infringement. He added that Indian courts also lacked jurisdiction to consider ANI’s allegations regarding his clients using news agency’s work for training the large-language model (LLM) because the servers were located outside the country.

The matter is keenly watched, for the outcome of this case could significantly shape the jurisprudence surrounding copyright in the digital age, setting a precedent for how original news content could be protected against unauthorised use by AI-driven platforms.

During the proceedings, the court also issued notice in an application filed by digital arms of three major news publishers HT Digital Streams (HT Media), IE Online Media Services Private Limited (Express Group) and NDTV Convergence, along with industry body Digital News Publishers Association, seeking intervention in the copyright infringement suit. Justice Bansal asked OpenAI to file its response in two weeks, despite its opposition that allowing the intervention would expand the scope of the suit.

In its suit before the high court, ANI had sought to restrain Open AI from publishing its work using the ChatGPT model and delete its work held and stored on ChatGPT, alleging that Open AI was exploiting its original content for commercial gain. Seeking damages to the tune of 2 crore, the news agency’s suit went on to add that Open AI had used its work for training the LLM, underlying ChatGPT to generate responses, without obtaining a lawful license or permission to use its original work. It went on to add that OpenAI besides illegitimately copying and storing its work, was wrongly attributing news content to the news agency.

On November 19, the high court issued summons in the suit but had refused to immediately restrain the platform from publishing ANI’s content, on being informed that the platform since October had blocklisted the news agency’s domain to prevent the use of new agency’s content by the AI chatbot.

The court had also appointed advocate Adarsh Ramanujan and Dr Arul George Scaria, Professor of Law, National Law School of India University (NLSIU) as amicus curiae to assist the court, saying that the suit raised “novel legal issues arising on account of recent technological advancements”.

It had framed four issues vis a vis its jurisdiction to hear the suit considering that the servers were located in the United States of America, whether ChatGPTs act of storing ANI’s data for its training software amounted to infringement, whether the use of ANIs copyrighted data for generating responses amounted to infringement and if OpenAI’s use of ANI’s copyrighted data qualified as fair use under section 52 of the Copyright Act, 1957. The said provision lays down the work which are exempted from falling in the purview of “copyright infringement” and says that use of copyrighted material for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research is considered fair use and may not be considered infringement.

On January 10, joint registrar Ajay Gulati issued notice in an application filed by Federation of Indian Publishers (FIP) also seeking intervention in ANI’s suit, asserting that Open AI was using its original literary work for training LLM. On Monday, OpenAI filed its affidavit opposing FIP’s application, asserting that its web crawlers were not using the “proprietary material” that was behind paywalls.

During the hearing on Tuesday, the court took exception to the circulation of pleadings in the case, before the same being considered by court and indicated that there would not be unnecessary reporting on the submissions filed by parties. This was after Sibal drew the court’s attention to various news reports dealing with FIPs application and his response to the same. “We will ask them to exercise restraint. That I am indicating. No unnecessary reporting at least on the submissions of parties,” justice Bansal told Sibal.

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