The Delhi High Court on Friday dismissed Asian News International’s interim injunction application against OpenAI, holding that Open AI’s use of ANI’s content for training ChatGPT did not amount to copyright infringement
The court said that OpenAI’s act of storing ANI’s original literary works for training large language models underlying ChatGPT falls within Section 52(1)(a) of the Copyright Act and therefore does not amount to infringement under Section 51.
“OpenAI’s act of storing ANI’s original literary works for training LLMs underlying ChatGPT falls under Section 52(1)(a) of the Copyright Act and therefore does not amount to infringement under Section 51,” the bench held.
In a single-judge bench order, Justice Amit Bansal denied ANI’s interim relief application seeking to restrain OpenAI from using its news content to train ChatGPT.
The court also said that outputs generated by ChatGPT using retrieval augmented generation (RAG) techniques do not amount to infringement under the Copyright Act, as the outputs were not substantially similar to ANI’s original retrieval.
“Outputs generated by ChatGPT using RAG technique does not amount to infringement under Section 51 of the Copyright Act, since the outputs generated by OpenAI were not substantially similar to ANI’s original literary works,” the bench said.
The bench added that ANI had failed to satisfy the court that any memorisation or regurgitation of its original works had occurred in the responses generated by ChatGPT.
“In view of the discussion, ANI has failed to make out a prima facie case for grant of interim injunction. Balance of convenience is also against grant of interim injunction. Irreparable injury would be caused not only to OpenAI, but also to the public at large if an interim injunction is granted in favour of ANI at this time. Accordingly, the application is dismissed,” the court said.
The suit was filed by ANI Media in November 2024, alleging that OpenAI used its copyrighted news content without permission or licensing fee to train ChatGPT and seeking a permanent injunction.
ANI’s allegations broadly covered three claims including unauthorised use of its content for training large language models, verbatim or near-identical reproduction of its copyrighted material in ChatGPT responses, and hallucinated content falsely attributed to ANI.
OpenAI argued that it had blocklisted ANI’s domain since October 2024, denied infringement, and separately contended that Indian courts lacked jurisdiction since it has no servers or physical presence in India.
The court appointed two amici curiae on this case including advocate Adarsh Ramanujan and professor Arul George Scari. The case later saw further interventions in 2025, including applications by the Digital News Publishers Association, the Indian Music Industry and the Federation of Indian Publishers.
Justice Bansal reserved judgment on March 27, 2026.
