News agency Asian News International (ANI) told the Delhi High Court on Tuesday that AI chatbot ChatGPT has been infringing on ANI’s copyright not only by taking content directly from its website but also by scraping content that is shared with ANI’s subscribers [ANI Media Pvt Ltd v. Open AI Inc & Anr].
The submission was made before Justice Amit Bansal by ANI’s counsel advocate Sidhant Kumar during a hearing of the news agency’s copyright infringement suit against OpenAI, which developed and owns ChatGPT.
To cite an example, Kumar referred to a news article from the Economic Times (ET) which has subscribed to use ANI’s content for a fee.
Taking content shared with ET by ANI would also amount to an infringement of ANI’s content, Kumar argued.
“While they crawl from my (ANI’s) website, they also crawl material from my subscribers. While they say that they don’t take content from me, they are taking from my subscribers. I do not cease to have control over copyright. I don’t divest control … Merely because I have licensed contact content for public viewing by a person who has paid subscription or a license fee, I do not cease to have control over that content,” he said.
Kumar added that while copyright may not lie in common facts, the manner in which such facts are narrated – as is the case with news articles – carries a copyright.
“They (OpenAI) state that facts cannot be copyrighted, the narration can be. I cannot have a monopoly over reporting that particular fact, but I certainly do have a monopoly over reporting that fact in that manner. Expression is capable of copyright protection. When I publish an article which is authored by my journalists, weighted by my editors, there is a particular way in which I will narrate,” he said.
In response, Senior Advocate Amit Sibal, appearing for OpenAI, argued that when the same facts are narrated by different persons, similarities are bound to rise.
In such a scenario, a copyright infringement claim will not lie, he said. To cite an example, he pointed out that a quote given by a celebrity and published across media portals would not carry copyright.
“When the facts are narrated by someone else, there will always be a similarity, which comes from the fact that the facts are common between the two narrations,” he said.
He added that ChatGPT also only provides a summary of what is available online in its own words, and also redirects users to the websites from which the information is sourced from.
Meanwhile, Advocate Kumar also accused OpenAI/ ChatGPT of violating ANI’s copyright by ripping off content from interviews published by ANI.
He pointed out that an interview on ANI’s website was translated by it, which was then made available on ChatGPT. This too violates ANI’s copyright, Kumar argued.
“I have independent intellectual property on translations. Our interviews are carried out by other subscribers, but we hold rights in it,” he said.
Sibal countered by arguing that ANI is not a newspaper itself and that OpenAI has licensing agreements with the newspapers from which it may source information that is summarised on ChatGPT. To cite an example, Sibal said,
“We have license with Financial Times, where they wish for us to promote their content, they give us a license to reproduce their content. Plaintiff (ANI) is not a newspaper. It only collects information. Financial Times is a newspaper with which I have a license in place.”
That matter will be heard next on March 28.
In its suit before the High Court, ANI has claimed that its original content is being exploited by OpenAI for commercial gain and to train its AI chatbot, ChatGPT to answer user queries.
On November 19, the Court issued summons to Open AI. Advocates Adarsh Ramanujan and Dr Arul George Scaria were also appointed as amici curiae in the case.
The Court is now considering the following four issues:
I. Whether the storage by Open AI of ANI’s data (which is in the nature of news and is claimed to be protected under the Copyright Act, 1957) for training its software (ChatGPT) would amount to infringement of ANI’s copyright.
II. Whether the use by Open AI of ANI’s copyrighted data in order to generate responses for its users, would amount to infringement of the news agency’s copyright.
III. Whether Open AI’s use of ANI’s copyrighted data qualifies as ‘fair use’ in terms of Section 52 of the Copyright Act, 1957.
