Delhi High Court appoints two law experts to assist it in ANI's Copyright Infringement Suit against OpenAI
The Delhi High Court has appointed advocate Adarsh Ramanujan and Dr. Arul George Scaria, who is a professor of Law at National Law School of India University, as amici curiae in the copyright infringement suit filed by Asian News International (ANI) against OpenAI’s ChatGPT [ANI Media Pvt Ltd V/s Open AI Inc & Anr].
Justice Amit Bansal noted the need for experts' assistance in the case due to the involvement of issues related to recent technological advancements. The Court observed, "Considering the range of issues involved in the present suit arising on account of recent technological advancements vis-à-vis copyrights of various copyright owners, this Court is of the view that two Amici Curiae be appointed to assist the Court in this case, (i) a lawyer practicing in the field of intellectual property including copyright and (ii) an academician in the field of intellectual property including copyright."
Case Background
ChatGPT is an AI chatbot developed by OpenAI to answer user queries. ANI alleged that OpenAI is exploiting its original content for commercial purposes and to train the ChatGPT model. As a result, the High Court issued summons to Open AI on November 19 and decided to appoint amicus curie in the case.
In its order, the Court identified four key issues to be considered:
- Whether Open AI's storage of ANI's data for training ChatGPT constitutes copyright infringement.
- Whether Open AI's use of ANI's data to generate responses for users infringes on the news agency's copyright.
- Whether Open AI's use of ANI's data qualifies as 'fair use' under the Copyright Act, 1957.
- Whether Indian courts have jurisdiction over the lawsuit given Open AI's servers are located in the United States.
The Court directed the appointed experts to submit their submissions before the next hearing scheduled for January 28, 2025.
Legal Precedent
This lawsuit marks the first instance of an Indian media house suing OpenAI for copyright infringement. Previously, New York Times sued OpenAI for unauthorized content use. Similar lawsuits have been filed against Microsoft's Copilot and Google's Bard AI.
Advocates representing ANI include Sidhant Kumar, Akshit Mago, Monyaa Chandok, Om Batra, and Anshika Saxena. Senior Advocate Amit Sibal and a team of other advocates appeared for Open AI.
[Read Order]
