The Delhi High Court on Tuesday heard arguments in a copyright infringement case filed by news agency Asian News International (ANI) against OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT.
ANI has accused OpenAI of unauthorized use of its copyrighted content, alleging that the AI chatbot not only extracts material directly from its website but also scrapes subscriber-exclusive content, reports Bar & Bench.
During the hearing, ANI’s counsel argued that OpenAI was violating the agency’s copyright by repurposing its news reports and interviews without authorization. The counsel also pointed out that ANI’s subscribers, such as The Economic Times (ET), pay for access to its content, and OpenAI’s alleged scraping of that material also constitutes copyright infringement.
Counsel appearing for OpenAI, countered ANI’s claims, arguing that facts themselves are not protected by copyright, and when multiple media outlets report the same event, similarities are inevitable.
The counsel, however, asserted that ChatGPT does not copy ANI’s content verbatim but instead generates summaries based on publicly available information.
It was further added that OpenAI holds licensing agreements with certain media houses, such as The Financial Times, for content use.
The matter is set for its next hearing on March 28.