Delhi High Court Holds Off on Immediate Ban of OpenAI’s Use of ANI Content

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday refused to grant an immediate injunction that would have stopped OpenAI from pulling ANI’s news stories for training its ChatGPT model. The bench, consisting of Justices Avneesh Jhingan and Manmeet P.S. Arora, stressed that it would not pass any order ex‑parte without first hearing the other side.

ANI’s appeal challenges a July 24 order by a single‑judge bench that dismissed the agency’s plea for a restraining order. That earlier judgment held that OpenAI’s use of the agency’s material fell under the “fair dealing” exception in Indian copyright law, which permits limited copying for private use, research and similar purposes.

ANI’s counsel, Siddhant Kumar, reminded the court that from September 2024 until the July decision, OpenAI had voluntarily agreed not to scrape content from ANI’s website. He urged the judges to maintain that arrangement until a full hearing can be conducted.

The division bench issued a notice on ANI’s appeal and scheduled the next hearing for December 5. In its filing, the news agency contended that the single‑judge’s ruling effectively broadened the fair‑dealing exception to cover commercial exploitation, thereby infringing ANI’s exclusive rights to reproduce, store, adapt and translate its works.

OpenAI has not yet been heard on the matter, and the court’s refusal to issue an ex‑parte order means the dispute will continue to unfold in the coming weeks.