The Delhi high court on Tuesday refused to immediately restrain OpenAI from scraping news agency ANI’s content to train ChatGPT and generate responses, saying the company must first be heard.
The court was hearing ANI’s appeal against a July 24 order of a single judge, who dismissed the agency’s plea seeking to restrain OpenAI from using its content to train ChatGPT. ANI’s lawyer Kumar told the court that from September 2024 until July 24, OpenAI had undertaken not to scrape content from the agency’s website. The lawyer urged the court to direct OpenAI to continue with the same arrangement. In its appeal, ANI argued that the injunction had been denied without adequately considering OpenAI’s alleged admission that it had scraped, stored and commercially exploited the agency’s work.
The judge held that OpenAI’s use of such material falls within the statutory exception of “fair dealing” under Indian copyright law.
