The Delhi High Court has ruled in favour of OpenAI in the copyright infringement dispute filed by news agency Asian News International (ANI). According to the latest court ruling, the court held that OpenAI's use of ANI's content to train its artificial intelligence models does not constitute copyright infringement. The court specifically found that storing the news agency's works for the purpose of training ChatGPT is protected under the Section 52 exception of the Copyright Act, which permits the use of copyrighted works under specific exempt circumstances. The bench further clarified that ChatGPT's Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) responses—which combine AI reasoning with retrieved information—do not violate ANI's copyright. The court observed that the outputs generated by ChatGPT are not substantially similar to the news agency's original works, reinforcing that AI-generated responses do not amount to copyright infringement under Section 52(1)(a). The court also refused to grant interim relief to ANI, holding that granting an interim injunction would cause irreparable harm not only to OpenAI and ChatGPT but also to the public at large.
The dispute began in November 2024 when news agency Asian News International (ANI) sued OpenAI, becoming the first lawsuit of its kind in India against an AI company. As reported by Mint, the case later expanded beyond ANI, with the Federation of Indian Publishers (FIP), the Digital News Publishers Association (DNPA), and the Indian Music Industry (IMI) joining as intervenors. These bodies have argued that using publicly available copyrighted content to train AI models without a licence infringes intellectual property rights and undermines the economic value of original journalism and creativity. ANI's case was that OpenAI trained ChatGPT on its copyrighted news content without a licence, and that ChatGPT sometimes generates responses that reproduce or draw on ANI's work, including instances where allegedly fabricated content was falsely attributed to the agency. ANI had sought an interim injunction restraining OpenAI from using its material and sought the deletion of its works from the datasets used for training the AI models.
OpenAI has denied the allegations and argued that copyright protects the expression of ideas, not the underlying facts. According to Mint, the company has also said it blocked ANI's website from future training of its models in October 2024. OpenAI has further challenged the maintainability of the suit, arguing that Indian courts lack jurisdiction because its servers and core infrastructure are located outside the country. The company has said that AI models are trained on publicly available data and learn statistical patterns rather than reproducing copyrighted works. At the first hearing on November 19, 2024, OpenAI made a voluntary disclosure, telling the court it had already blocklisted ANI's website (aninews.in) back in October 2024, meaning that domain would be excluded from future training of its models. This didn't resolve ANI's claims about past use, but it was recorded as a concession on the record. OpenAI has opposed the plea, contending that ChatGPT does not store or reproduce articles in the manner alleged by ANI and that its outputs are generated afresh rather than copied verbatim. The company has also argued that restrictions on AI model training would adversely affect innovation and the development of generative AI technologies.
The verdict is being closely watched because of India's importance to OpenAI, with the company stating that the country accounts for around 100 million weekly active ChatGPT users, making it one of its largest markets globally. As reported by Mint, ChatGPT held nearly 78% of India's AI chatbot market in June 2026, well ahead of competitors such as Google Gemini, Claude, Microsoft Copilot and Perplexity. The ruling comes amid a growing number of copyright lawsuits against AI companies around the world, with OpenAI facing similar litigation in the United States and other jurisdictions, including a high-profile case brought by The New York Times. The court noted that "similar disputes were playing out abroad, most notably the New York Times' case against OpenAI in the US, but that there was no authoritative ruling anywhere yet that Indian courts could draw on." The case is expected to shape the legal framework governing AI developers' use of copyrighted works and the balance between intellectual property rights and technological innovation.
Given the novelty of the issues involved, the court appointed Professor Arul George Scaria of the National Law School of India University, Bengaluru, and advocate Adarsh Ramanujan as amici curiae to assist it. According to Mint, the judgment comes after 32 hearings, with arguments concluding on 27 March. The court laid out four issues at the heart of the dispute: whether OpenAI's storing of ANI's content to train ChatGPT amounts to copyright infringement; whether generating responses to users using that content is itself an infringing act; whether OpenAI's conduct could be defended as fair dealing under Section 52 of the Copyright Act, 1957; and whether the courts in India have jurisdiction to entertain the present lawsuit considering that the servers of the defendants are located in the United States of America. The court also recorded its appreciation for the counsel and the amicus curiae who appeared in the matter and rendered invaluable assistance.
