The Delhi High Court has reserved its judgement on Friday in the landmark ANI News versus OpenAI copyright infringement case 2024, pertaining to the larger debate around “fair use” policy of AI companies to train their models on media organizations’ works.

In a first of its kind copyright infringement case against an AI company, the ANI News media group- the largest news organization of India, has sued OpenAI- the creators of ChatGPT over training of its AI models on the copyrighted journalistic works of ANI.

A bench of Justice Amit Bansal of the Delhi HC, reserved its judgement on Friday after hearing the plaintiff (ANI News) and defendant counsels and the appointed amicus curiae in the case.

In November 2024, ANI had approached the Delhi HC asking for an “immediate injunction restraining OpenAI from storing, publishing, reproducing or using their copyrighted works.” ANI had also asked the court to pass an order to disable ChatGPT’s access to their works.

OpenAI is facing similar lawsuits in the U.S. from major news media conglomerates including The New York Times over their AI models using copyrighted works of journalists for training.

The AI company has cited “fair use” policy as their defense, claiming news is based on facts, which are free for everyone to use.

While accepting the plea of ANI in November 2024, the court had observed that it is first of a kind case in India and required warrant consideration on key issues like whether storing of ANI’s copyrighted data by ChatGPT and the act of ChatGPT generating response by using copyrighted data of ANI, both falling under “fair use” policy  is a violation of the copyright act.

Also Read: Britannica Sues OpenAI over Copyright Infringement