AI industry’s one of the biggest and most common names ChatGPT maker OpenAI is worried. Reason: It says that Chinese companies are actively attempting to replicate its advanced AI models. “We know (China) based companies — and others — are constantly trying to distill the models of leading US AI companies,” an OpenAI spokesperson told news agency AFP.
OpenAI further said that the process was against its terms of service and it would work at detecting and preventing further attempts.We “believe as we go forward that it is critically important that we are working closely with the US government to best protect the most capable models from efforts by adversaries and competitors to take US technology,” the spokesperson added.
While OpenAI, Microsoft and some in the US government are crying foul; many across the internet are not amused. For, the company led by Sam Altman is itself facing multiple accusations of intellectual property violations, primarily related to the use of copyrighted materials in training its generative AI models.
ChatGPT facing ‘copying’ lawsuits across the world
Such Copyright infringement cases against ChatGPT abound across the world. Courts across the world are hearing claims by authors, news outlets and musicians who accuse ChatGPT of using their copyright work to train AI services and who are seeking to have content used to train the chatbot deleted.
Earlier this month, the New Delhi-based Federation of Indian Publishers filed a case at the Delhi High Court against OpenAI, which is already facing similar lawsuits in the same court. The case has been filed on behalf of all the federation’s members, who include publishers like Bloomsbury (BLPU.L), opens new tab, Penguin Random House, Cambridge University Press and Pan Macmillan, as well as India’s Rupa Publications and S.Chand and Co. “Our ask from the court is that they should stop (OpenAI from) accessing our copyright content,” Pranav Gupta, the federation’s general secretary told Reuters about the lawsuit, which concerns the ChatGPT tool’s book summaries.
Not just this, the Indian media outlets, including NDTV and Network18 have told the Delhi High Court that they want to join the ongoing lawsuit against ChatGPT creator OpenAI as they are worried their news websites are being scraped to store and reproduce their work for users of the powerful AI tool. The 135-page case filing, which is not public but was reviewed by Reuters, argues OpenAI’s conduct constitutes “a clear and present danger to the valuable copyrights” of Digital News Publishers Association (DNPA) members and other outlets.
OpenAI questioned Delhi Court’s territorial jurisdiction in copyright case
In November 2024, the Delhi High Court issued summons to OpenAI in a lawsuit filed by news agency Asian News International (ANI) over use of its news content “without any license or permission”, by the advanced AI-powered chatbot to provide services to its users.
Responding to the same earlier this month, Open AI’s counsel questioned the territorial jurisdiction of courts in India to decide the issue. Senior advocate Amit Sibal, representing OpenAI, said that the organisation operates internationally, with no servers or offices in India.
NewYork Times sues OpenAI and Microsoft over AI use of copyrighted work
In 2024, the New York Times sued OpenAI and its partner Microsoft for the unpermitted use of Times articles to train GPT large language models.