OpenAI has pushed back against claims from Indian media groups that it unlawfully uses their content to train ChatGPT. In a recent court filing, the Microsoft-backed AI firm stated that it does not scrape or reproduce content from Indian publishers, as alleged in a copyright lawsuit. The filing also revealed that OpenAI is attempting to prevent major Indian media companies, including those linked to Gautam Adani and Mukesh Ambani, from joining the case.
The dispute stems from a lawsuit filed last year by ANI, an Indian news agency, which accused OpenAI of using its published material without permission to train its AI chatbot. Since then, a coalition of book publishers and media organisations—including NDTV, The Indian Express, The Hindustan Times, and the Digital News Publishers Association (DNPA)—have rallied behind ANI, claiming OpenAI has been unfairly leveraging their content.
In its 31-page court filing, dated February 11, OpenAI firmly denied that it had used content from these Indian media groups for training its AI models. The company also argued that it is under no legal obligation to form licensing deals with them, especially since it primarily relies on publicly available data.
OpenAI has maintained that its AI models are developed using a fair-use approach, supported by widely accepted legal precedents. The company has also pointed out that many of its partnerships with international news publishers do not involve licensing agreements for AI training but are instead designed to display content in ChatGPT.
This case is part of a much larger global legal battle between media organisations, musicians, and authors against AI companies. OpenAI and other tech firms have been facing increasing scrutiny over how they source data for training their AI models, with lawsuits popping up worldwide.
Unlike some major global publishers that have struck deals with OpenAI to allow AI-generated summaries of their content, Indian media houses claim they have not been offered similar arrangements. Their legal filings argue that OpenAI is profiting from their journalism without offering any compensation.
OpenAI, however, insists that its methods align with Indian copyright laws and that using publicly available information does not equate to infringement.
This legal battle comes just after OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s visit to India, where he met with India’s IT minister to discuss the country’s ambitions for a low-cost AI ecosystem. While the meeting focused on India’s AI growth plans, it’s unclear whether the copyright lawsuit was addressed.
For now, the case remains unresolved, with Indian media groups pushing for stronger protections against AI-powered content aggregation. Whether OpenAI can continue to operate in India without licensing local content—or if it will be forced into agreements with Indian publishers—remains to be seen.
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