New Delhi: Acting on a petition filed by Indian news agency Asian News International (ANI), the Delhi High Court issued a summons Tuesday to artificial intelligence company OpenAI, accusing it of violating the agency’s copyright for training its chatbot, ChatGPT.
A single-judge bench of Justice Amit Bansal also sought a response from US-based tech giant OpenAI on the plea which alleges that the company used ANI’s content without permission to train its Large Language Model (LLM) to generate human-like responses to queries. ANI also sought an injunction from the court to prevent OpenAI from continuing to do so.
LLMs are deep-learning models trained on vast amounts of publicly available data like articles, websites, and books. They also generate human-like responses to queries but are not always accurate, according to a Harvard Data Science Review in a research paper published in July this year.
What the court ordered
On 19 November, the court took note of OpenAI’s submission that it had blocked the news agency’s website to prevent the chatbot from using its content.
Taking note of the relevance of this question, the court ordered that an amicus curiae be appointed in this case to assist the court. “Considering the range of issues in the present suit as well as issues arising on account of the latest technological advancements vis-à-vis copyrights of various copyright owners, this court is of the view that an amicus curiae be appointed to assist the court in this case,” it said, according to a LiveLaw report.
The bench also issued a notice to the US-based tech giant, asking it to respond to ANI’s plea. The matter will be heard in January next year.
ANI’s case
The multimedia news agency moved the Delhi High Court in November this year, accusing OpenAI of infringing ANI’s copyright while adding that the tech giant indulged in disparagement, unjust enrichment, and unfair competition.
Saying that it has built a large archive made up of text, exclusive statements, articles, programmes, interviews, videos, and images over the last five decades, ANI said that it is the exclusive owner of the copyright and consequently, has the sole right to exploit, reproduce, and store its work in any form, according to the Copyright Act, 1957, which aims to protect creative works.
On the other hand, it said that the defendant, OpenAI’s Chat Generative Pre-Trained Transformer (ChatGPT)—an interactive, conversational text-based Al platform—is built on LLMs that are developed, trained, and attuned by “feeding it a database of information”. For this, ANI accused Open AI of using its works, which it said were stored in ChatGPT’s memory to “duplicate, often verbatim” the contents and manner of presenting literary or other works.
ANI also added that ChatGPT is a commercial entity which is available for public use, at large and also has a subscription plan that offers advanced features to individuals and companies on payment of a fee.
ANI added that such content remains in its memory indefinitely. It also said that the sole purpose of such storage and use is to bolster the chatbot’s capability and functioning.
Using and storing ANI’s works, without licence or permission, to provide services to their users and even paid subscribers, violates ANI’s exclusive right to exploit its works, it said. Moreover, it said that OpenAI had “in many instances, falsely attributed statements” to ANI that misled the general public.
For instance, the plea said that while responding to a user query, ChatGPT “falsely stated” that Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi had appeared on a podcast hosted by ANI, going so far as to provide a summary of the “purported interview”. It added that Gandhi never featured on ANI’s podcast and the statements were “false and fabricated”.
Finally, ANI sought to restrain OpenAI from accessing, storing, reproducing, publishing, or in any other manner, using its content, on all versions of ChatGPT. In addition to this, it sought damages suffered by it on account of copyright infringement, unjust enrichment, unfair competition, and other wrongs.
What a copyright is & and how it is infringed
A “copyright” is a bundle of rights given by the law to creators of literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works and producers of cinematographic films and sound recordings. It includes the right to reproduction, communication to the public, adaptation, and translation of the work. The 1957 Act seeks to protect such creative works, deemed as the creator’s intellectual property (IP).
A copyright is said to be “infringed” if a substantial part of protected work is used without permission. In that case, the owner of the copyright can take legal action against anyone infringing on or violating their copyright. As a result, they could also be entitled to the grant of certain remedies such as injunctions and damages.
A 2003 ruling, of the Delhi High Court in Pepsi vs. Hindustan Coca-Cola quoted the New International Websters’ Comprehensive Dictionary to define disparagement as “to speak of slightingly, undervalue, to bring discredit or dishonour upon, the act of depreciating, derogation, a condition of low estimation or valuation, a reproach, disgrace, an unjust classing or comparison with that which is of less worth, and degradation”.
On the other hand, the principle of unjust enrichment operates on the basis that it would be unjust to allow one person to retain a benefit received at the expense of another person, the Supreme Court said in its 1994 ruling in Renusagar Power vs. General Electric.
ANI also accused OpenAI of indulging in unfair competition by using the agency’s content to publish and timely report accurate information on current affairs to its own subscribers. This, it said, could not only draw away ANI’s readers but also affect its entire business model and operations.
The issue of non-exclusive licenses
In its plea, filed through advocate Sidhant Kumar, ANI noted that “it grants a non-exclusive license to its subscribers” to utilise its works for commercial purposes.
Section 2(j) of the 1957 Act defines an exclusive license as “a license which confers on the licensee or on the licenses and persons authorised by him, to the exclusion of all other persons (including the owner of the copyright), any right comprised in the copyright in a work”.
On the other hand, although a non-exclusive license is not defined in the Copyright Act, it is often used to refer to a right where the owner can grant the license to more than one person, including himself, without allowing anyone else the exclusive right to use such content.
However, ANI said that under such license agreements, it specifically excludes the right of further syndication (transfer or sale) of its works and uses different mediums to share its content with its subscribers—like through its text wire portal and file transfer protocol.
In addition to its syndicated news feed, ANI said it also generates considerable revenue from advertising on its website, social media, and YouTube channel. The subscription and licensing arrangements are its key revenue, it said in its plea, adding that this allows it to dedicate more resources and continue delivering “true and authentic news content to its subscribers and the public”.
Not the first such case against OpenAI
This is not the first time that a news agency or a media house has taken ChatGPT’s parent company to court.
Last year, The New York Times sued the ChatGPT creator for the unauthorised use of “millions of articles” to train chatbots.
A December 2023 report in the NYT said, “When chatbots are asked about current events or other newsworthy topics, they can generate answers that rely on journalism by The Times. The newspaper expresses concern that readers will be satisfied with a response from a chatbot and decline to visit The Times’s website, thus reducing web traffic that can be translated into advertising and subscription revenue.”
Besides OpenAI, NYT sued Microsoft, for similar reasons, alleging violation of its copyrighted works, by its search engine, Bing.
Similarly, in September, last year, a group of 17 prominent authors, including George R.R. Martin, Jodi Picoult, John Grisham and Jonathan Franzen, filed a class action suit against OpenAI for illegally using their copyrighted work, CNN reported.
(Edited by Sanya Mathur)
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