On Friday, Delhi High Court said it cannot, for now, stop OpenAI from using news agency ANI's reports to train ChatGPT. Justice Amit Bansal's order is India's first real answer to a question courts everywhere are struggling with: when an AI company feeds thousands of articles into a machine without paying for it, is that theft? The judge gave 3 reasons for his order, all under the Copyright Act 1957.
Feeding ANI's articles into ChatGPT counts as 'fair dealing' for research under Section 52(1)(a). So, it's not infringement.
Answers ChatGPT gives users are not close enough to ANI's articles to be copies.
ANI could not show that ChatGPT had 'memorised' its stories and was 'spitting' them back out.
Copyright protects the way something is written, not the facts inside it. If a particular media organisation reports that a minister has resigned, no one may lift its sentences. But everyone remains free to report the resignation. This is old law, not something invented for computers. That distinction decides most of this case.
When a model is trained, it does not keep a copy of the article in a drawer. It measures which words tend to follow which, adjusts some numbers, and moves on. Sentences are not stored. Nothing a reader could recognise survives. The real question is not what went in but what comes out. If ChatGPT had reproduced ANI's paras, the agency would have won. It said that happens but could not prove it.
Pertinently, India has no broad US- style 'fair use'. Its law has a fixed list of exceptions, and courts have said it cannot be enlarged. That was OpenAI's danger: a strong argument, and possibly no rule to hang it on.

The interpretation has been that AI training is a form of research and is, therefore, placed on that list. It is a generous reading and likely the main issue on appeal. But there's a fair thought behind it. The law was written in 1957, long before software like this existed. If nothing on that old list could ever fit AI, then India would end up with some of the world's tightest rules because of how the law is worded.

Link: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/opinion/et-commentary/teaching-ai-isnt-theft-yet/articleshow/132612599.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst