Trump Administration Files Brief Supporting OpenAI in New York Times Copyright Lawsuit
The federal government argued that AI training on copyrighted works constitutes fair use and is essential to U.S. AI competitiveness, directly supporting OpenAI's defense against the Times' infringement claims.
What happened
On Tuesday, the Trump Administration submitted a letter to federal court backing OpenAI in its ongoing copyright dispute with the New York Times. The Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft in 2023, claiming they violated copyright law by training AI tools on its articles without permission. The government argued that OpenAI's training practices fall within fair use doctrine, citing the "transformative" nature of large language model development and stating that OpenAI's systems do not meaningfully compete with Times articles. The administration framed the case as critical to U.S. "global leadership in artificial intelligence" and warned that constraining LLM development under strict copyright interpretations would harm American economic and scientific progress. The government's position applies to all parties and related cases, including other publishers and authors.
Context
This filing marks significant federal intervention in a legal landscape crowded with copyright disputes over AI training. Multiple high-profile cases are pending, with mixed outcomes so far: Meta won a copyright case with caveats about potential future liability, while Anthropic lost a case and was ordered to pay $1.5 billion in damages, though the judge ruled the training itself was fair use. Recent lawsuits from Sony, Warner Music, and Universal Music Group against Anthropic show the conflict extending to music copyright. The government's brief carries substantial weight with judges, though they are not obliged to follow it. The stakes center on whether copyright law will restrict AI companies' ability to use published material for training, with implications for the entire U.S. AI industry's competitive position.
What's disputed
Whether AI training on copyrighted works constitutes fair use under current law; whether such training causes competitive harm to original creators; the proper application of fair use doctrine to AI systems; whether constraining AI training would damage U.S. competitiveness or illegally enable copyright infringement.