News agency ANI has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI over alleged unauthorised use of its original news content. This is a first of a kind case in India, and its ruling can set a precedent in the future for AI-related intellectual property disputes. The case was heard at the Delhi High Court under Justice Amit Bansal on Tuesday.
ANI’s lawsuit against OpenAI is two fold: firstly, it has accused the company of using copyrighted content to train its large language models (LLMs). ANI alleged that it was deriving commercial benefit without authorization. The second acquisition is ChatGPT not only ANI’s content verbatim in response to user queries but it has also attributed fake and fabricated news to ANI. The news agency argues that this damages its reputation and there’s a risk of people trusting the fake news thinking that it is coming from ANI.
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OpenAI defended itself and said, “We build our AI models using publicly available data, in a manner protected by fair use and related principles.” The company further stated that it will not use ANI’s content to train ChatGPT and that ANI has been on its blocklist since September. However, ANI argues that its content has been stored in ChatGPT’s memory and cannot be removed.
The case was heard on Tuesday at the Delhi High Court. The judge has asked OpenAI to submit a detailed response against ANI’s allegations. The next hearing is scheduled for January 28, 2025 when OpenAI will have to present its defence.
This adds to the list of lawsuits against OpenAI across the globe. The company had previously acknowledged issues like “regurgitation,” where its models occasionally reproduce copyrighted content verbatim. It had said that this was a “rare bug” which they will eliminate. In India, the proceedings of this case can have significant impacts on how AI-related intellectual property disputes will be dealt with.