News agencies sue OpenAI over copyright and training data
Indian news agency ANI sued OpenAI in New Delhi court in November 2024, alleging unauthorized use of its content to train ChatGPT and fabricated attribution of news stories. Separately, OpenAI accidentally deleted key search data from a virtual machine provided for discovery in the New York Times copyright lawsuit, complicating legal proceedings.
What happened
Indian news agency ANI sued OpenAI in Delhi High Court on 19 November 2024, alleging that OpenAI used ANI's content without permission to train ChatGPT. The court issued a notice requiring OpenAI to provide a detailed response.
ANI's legal filing stated that OpenAI had attributed fabricated news stories to ANI's publications. OpenAI's India legal team had emailed ANI in September 2024 stating the agency's website was on an internal blocklist to prevent future use of its content in model training.
On 14 November 2024, OpenAI accidentally deleted search programs and results stored on a virtual machine provided to The New York Times' legal team for discovery in their copyright lawsuit. The plaintiffs' lawyers had spent over 150 hours examining OpenAI's training data. While some information was recovered, the absence of file structures and names made it unsuitable for legal purposes.
Reported impact
ANI alleged that its published works remain "permanently stored in ChatGPT's memory" with "no scheduled deletion." The agency said OpenAI had "refused to obtain a license or legal permission" for use of its original works.
The New York Times' legal team requested the court order OpenAI to repeat the searches to avoid incurring the same 150+ hours of cost and effort again.
Index analysis
Multiple news organizations globally have sued OpenAI over copyright claims, including the New York Times and Chicago Tribune in the United States.
OpenAI stated it builds AI models using publicly available data "in a manner protected by fair use and related principles, and backed by long-standing and widely accepted legal precedents." The company noted it has licensing agreements with organizations including Financial Times and Associated Press.
Classification
Sources and evidence
This record was researched and written by the Index, based on the following original reporting.