Indian News Agency Sues OpenAI for Copyright Violation

Asian News International, one of India’s largest news agencies, sued OpenAI in a court in India alleging that the U.S. artificial intelligence company misused its copyrighted news content.

ANI also alleged that OpenAI stored the data, which is in breach of intellectual property rights, while using its content and data to train their Large Language Model. The news agency is seeking initial damages of 20 million rupees ($236,910), its lawyer Sidhant Kumar said.

During a hearing in the Delhi High Court on Tuesday, OpenAI’s lawyer Amit Sibal told the court that the platform doesn’t have any servers in India, nor does the training of the model take place in India. As such, ANI has no right to sue the company in an Indian court. Sibal also mentioned that currently the news agency is on OpenAI’s block list.

“We build our AI models using publicly available data, in a manner protected by fair use and related principles, and supported by long-standing and widely accepted legal precedents” OpenAI said in a separate statement.

The lawsuit is the first of its kind against the U.S. company in India.

The court admitted the case and said that the issues surrounding large language model training are complex and will need assistance from an expert on the subject. The court will hear the case next on Jan. 28.

OpenAI also faces similar lawsuits in other jurisdictions — 13 in the US and one in Germany — Sibal told the court. There are no injunction orders against the platform anywhere yet, he added.