I expected the Delhi High Court’s ruling on ANI versus OpenAI to go the other way. News agencies have made real headway in other jurisdictions arguing that training on their reporting is itself the infringement, and I assumed an Indian court would lean toward the plaintiff on a fact pattern this sympathetic. It didn’t, and the reasoning it used is the more interesting story than the outcome. The Delhi High Court ruled that OpenAI’s use of ANI content to train ChatGPT wasn’t copyright infringement, because ANI didn’t show that ChatGPT actually reproduced its reports.

I think Big Tech gets away with treating “user safety” as a compliance checkbox more often than it should, and I’ve said so in this space before. If a $1 billion fine landed on Google for something a European regulator plausibly called a child-safety failure, my first instinct is to side with the regulator. My first instinct is wrong here, and not for the reason Google’s lobbyists would give you.

A bench trial is a trial decided by a judge alone, without a jury. A jury trial is decided by a panel of citizens. The choice between them — where one exists — is among the most consequential strategic decisions in litigation, with implications that reach from legal theory to psychology to the specific facts of the case. What They Are In a jury trial, the jury is the finder of fact.

A motion in limine is a pretrial request asking the court to rule on the admissibility of specific evidence before it is presented at trial. The goal is to prevent the jury from hearing evidence that the moving party believes is improper — and to avoid the prejudice that comes from a jury hearing something it is then told to disregard. What It Is Trials proceed under rules of evidence that determine what a jury can and cannot hear.

Nolle prosequi — Latin for “to be unwilling to prosecute” — is the formal declaration by a prosecutor that they are dropping criminal charges. It is among the most consequential acts in the criminal justice system and one of the most misunderstood by defendants who receive it. What It Is Prosecutors hold broad discretion over whether to pursue criminal charges. When a prosecutor decides to abandon a case — whether because evidence is insufficient, a witness is unavailable, a plea agreement with another defendant has resolved the matter, or the case is no longer in the public interest — they file a nolle prosequi (often abbreviated nol-pros or nol.

Voir dire is the process by which attorneys and judges question prospective jurors before a trial to assess their suitability to serve. It is also used, less commonly, to describe a preliminary examination of a witness or expert to determine competency. The term is older than the American legal system and considerably more interesting than most jury selection coverage suggests. What It Is Before a jury trial begins, a pool of prospective jurors — the venire — is summoned to the courthouse.

A writ of mandamus is a court order commanding a government official, lower court, or government body to perform a duty that is purely ministerial — one that the law requires them to perform and that they have refused or failed to carry out. It is an extraordinary remedy, not a routine one, and courts grant it sparingly. What It Is Mandamus sits in the category of extraordinary writs — legal tools that exist outside the normal appellate process and are available only when ordinary remedies are inadequate.