ON November 19, 2024, the Delhi High Court heard India's first lawsuit against OpenAI, the company behind the famous artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot ChatGPT.
The court issued a summons to OpenAI following a lawsuit filed by Asian News International (ANI). ANI accuses OpenAI of using its copyrighted news content without permission to train its large language model (LLM), ChatGPT. ANI is seeking ₹2 crore in damages and an injunction to stop OpenAI from using its content in future.
According to ANI, OpenAI uses the information on its web platform without permission. ANI contends that OpenAI has no authority to use its content for profit, even though it is freely accessible online. This issue is significant because it draws attention to the continuous tension between the intellectual property rights of content providers and data utilisation by AI businesses.
Background to the case
ANI is one of the major news agencies in India. It provides content for many media channels across the country. OpenAI is accused of having trained its language model, ChatGPT, on news content belonging to ANI without prior authorisation and while being fully aware that it has no authority to do so.
