OpenAI challenges Indian court's jurisdiction in copyright dispute
What's the story
OpenAI, a leading artificial intelligence (AI) firm, has challenged the jurisdiction of Indian courts in a copyright infringement lawsuit filed against it.
The company made the assertion in the Delhi High Court, citing its non-existent physical presence in India as the basis for its stance.
The development comes as part of an ongoing legal dispute with news agency ANI, which has accused OpenAI of unauthorized use of its content to train ChatGPT, OpenAI's AI chatbot.
Legal obligations
Stance on data preservation and deletion
OpenAI has argued that following any order to erase the training data used for ChatGPT would violate its legal obligations in the US, according to a recent filing seen by Reuters.
The company is already facing a similar lawsuit in the US, where laws require data to be preserved during active litigation.
"OpenAI is therefore under a legal obligation, under the laws of the United States to preserve, and not delete, the said training data," the company said.
Legal dispute
ANI's allegations and OpenAI's response
ANI had filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in Delhi in November 2024, accusing the company of using its published content without permission to train ChatGPT.
The news agency has sought the removal of its data already used by ChatGPT.
In its defense, OpenAI filed an 86-page document in the Delhi HC, claiming ANI's sought relief doesn't fall under the jurisdiction of Indian courts.
Jurisdiction challenge
Company's physical presence and data storage
OpenAI further argued its case by stating that it has "no office or permanent establishment in India...the servers on which (ChatGPT) stores its training data are similarly situated outside of India."
This argument is part of OpenAI's broader stance challenging the jurisdiction of Indian courts over this copyright infringement case.
The Delhi HC is set to hear this matter again on January 28.
Ongoing contention
ANI's concerns and OpenAI's previous assurance
During a November hearing, OpenAI assured the Delhi HC that it would stop using ANI's content.
However, ANI countered that its published works were still retained in ChatGPT's memory and should be removed.
The news agency also expressed worries about potential unfair competition due to OpenAI's business collaborations with other news outlets.
Legal battle
Allegations and OpenAI's commercial partnerships
ANI has also accused ChatGPT of reproducing "verbatim or substantially similar extracts" of its works in response to user prompts.
In its defense, OpenAI alleged that ANI "has sought to use verbatim extracts of its own article as a prompt, in an attempt to manipulate ChatGPT."
The lawsuit alleges that OpenAI leveraged ANI's content for its commercial benefit by using the news agency's content to train its large language models (LLMs).