OpenAI Vs ANI: AI Giant Says Indian Courts Can’t Hear Copyright Breach Cases

OpenAI Vs ANI: AI Giant Says Indian Courts Can’t Hear Copyright Breach Cases

SUMMARY

OpenAI said it is currently defending a litigation in the US, which requires it to preserve the data while the hearings are pending

In November, ANI sued OpenAI for using its published content to train ChatGPT without permission and has also sought the deletion of ANI's data already stored by ChatGPT

The AI major argued that it has "no office or permanent establishment in India ... the servers on which (ChatGPT) stores its training data are similarly situated outside of India”

OpenAI has reportedly told the Delhi High Court (HC) that the Indian courts do not have the jurisdiction to hear a copyright infringement case against the artificial intelligence (AI) company. OpenAI cited its lack of presence in the country for the stance.

The submissions came in response to a copyright breach case filed by news agency ANI in the HC. As per filings seen by Reuters, the AI giant said that any order to remove training data powering its chatbot ChatGPT would be inconsistent with its legal obligations in the US.

The Sam Altman-led company reportedly told the HC that it is currently defending litigation in the US pertaining to the data on which its models have been trained. It added that the laws of the North American country require the companies to preserve the data while hearings are pending.

OpenAI “is therefore under a legal obligation, under the laws of the United States to preserve, and not delete, the said training data”, the AI major reportedly added. 

This comes nearly two months after ANI filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging that the AI company used the news agency’s published content to train ChatGPT without permission. ANI has sought the deletion of its data already stored by ChatGPT.

In response, OpenAI has now responded with an 86-page filing at the Delhi HC. In its submission, OpenAI also said that the relief sought by ANI is not subject to the processes of Indian courts and is beyond their jurisdiction.

Making its case, the AI major argued that it has “no office or permanent establishment in India … the servers on which (ChatGPT) stores its training data are similarly situated outside of India”.

The HC will next hear the matter on January 28.

Notably, OpenAI, during a hearing in November, reportedly told the Delhi HC that it would no longer use ANI’s content anymore. In response, ANI contended that its published works were still stored in ChatGPT’s memory and should be deleted.

In its petition, ANI has also raised concerns over unfair competition arising from OpenAI’s commercial partnerships with other news organisations. Making its case, the news agency also told the HC that ChatGPT “reproduced verbatim or substantially similar extracts” of ANI’s works in response to user prompts.

Rebutting the charge, OpenAI claimed that ANI “has sought to use verbatim extracts of its own article as a prompt, in an attempt to manipulate ChatGPT”.

The lawsuit reportedly alleges that OpenAI exploited ANI’s content for its commercial gain by using the new agency’s content to train its large language models (LLMs). This is the first time that an Indian publisher has dragged an AI platform to the court for violating its intellectual property rights. The lawsuit has been filed by Delhi-based Unum Law on behalf of ANI.

Notably, this is not the first time that a GenAI platform has landed in choppy regulatory waters in the country. In February 2024, Google ran into trouble with the IT ministry over some of the responses from its AI platform Gemini on questions about Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

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