OpenAI vs ANI: Delhi HC refuses any ex-parte order

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday declined to issue an immediate ex-parte injunction against OpenAI, which was seeking to prevent the scraping of news agency ANI's content for training its ChatGPT system. Division Bench justices Avneesh Jhingan and Manmeet PS Arora emphasized the importance of hearing both sides before making such a decision.

The court was considering ANI's appeal against a July 24 ruling by a single judge who had dismissed ANI's petition to restrain OpenAI from using its content for ChatGPT training. ANI's lawyer, Siddhant Kumar, argued that OpenAI had not scraped ANI's website since September 2024 and requested the court to maintain this arrangement.

However, the division bench decided to schedule the next hearing for December 5. ANI contended that the single judge's decision overlooked OpenAI's acknowledgment of scraping, storing, and commercially exploiting the agency's content, which infringed upon ANI's exclusive rights under the Copyright Act. These rights included storing, reproducing, adapting, and translating ANI's original works.

Despite finding infringement, the single judge's ruling had expanded the scope of the fair-dealing exception for private use and research to include commercial exploitation of the copyrighted material.