OpenAI has petitioned an Indian court to dismiss a lawsuit from a consortium representing both Indian and international book publishers, who claim that the company has violated copyright laws. The legal documents assert that the ChatGPT service primarily uses publicly available information.
The litigation originated last year following a complaint from local news agency ANI, and it is scheduled to be addressed in New Delhi on Tuesday. The outcome of this case could significantly influence the regulatory landscape for artificial intelligence in India, which stands as OpenAI’s second-largest market by user base.
In recent developments, several book publishers, along with nearly a dozen digital media outlets—including those connected to prominent business figures Gautam Adani and Mukesh Ambani—have allied against the AI company in this legal matter.
The Federation of Indian Publishers, which includes several local firms as well as renowned brands like Bloomsbury and Penguin Random House, contends that ChatGPT generates summaries and excerpts from unauthorized online versions of their works, adversely affecting their sales.
In response, OpenAI argued that the information drawn by ChatGPT comes from sources such as Wikipedia and publicly accessible abstracts and tables of contents provided on the official websites of the publishers involved, according to a non-public court filing dated January 26 that was reviewed by Reuters.
“Web-crawlers are designed to access only data that is publicly available,” OpenAI remarked in its comprehensive 21-page rebuttal to the publishers’ claims.
The document further stated that the publishers have “entirely failed to demonstrate even a single instance” of original literary work being used to train OpenAI’s models.
Pranav Gupta, the secretary of the federation, informed Reuters that the content about books displayed by ChatGPT was primarily extracted from sites that have established licensing agreements with their member publishers.
OpenAI asserts that it only employs publicly accessible data in a manner that aligns with fair use guidelines. When approached for comment on Tuesday, the company redirected Reuters to previous statements and the court filing challenging the publishers’ position.
Additionally, OpenAI has claimed in previous responses to the ANI lawsuit that Indian courts lack jurisdiction to adjudicate a case against it, noting that its servers operate outside of India.
This case is part of a broader pattern of litigation worldwide, wherein authors, media companies, and musicians accuse tech firms of utilizing their copyrighted materials to train AI systems without appropriate permissions or licenses.
© Thomson Reuters 2025
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
