Trump administration files brief backing OpenAI against New York Times in AI training copyright case
The Trump administration has for the first time sided with an AI company in copyright litigation, backing OpenAI against the New York Times $NYT. The DOJ brief argues training LLMs on copyrighted text is fair use, not a licensing-cost subsidy for large media firms.
The Trump administration has filed a legal brief backing OpenAI in its copyright lawsuit with the New York Times $NYT, marking the first time the US government has directly intervened in the growing wave of litigation over AI companies training models on copyrighted material. The brief, filed by Department of Justice lawyers in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, argues that training large language models on copyrighted text generally qualifies as fair use. The DOJ's filing states that a narrow definition of fair use would function as a subsidy for large, established media companies by imposing licensing costs that smaller AI companies could not afford, calling it against the public interest for the largest tech firms to end up with an effective oligopoly on training data. The brief also frames the issue in terms of US competitiveness, arguing that restrictive copyright rules could set American AI companies back against international rivals. The Times sued OpenAI and its early backer Microsoft in 2023, alleging the companies used millions of its articles without permission to train ChatGPT; that case continues. Because this is the executive branch's first direct intervention in AI copyright litigation, the position it stakes out here is likely to be cited by AI companies facing similar suits from other publishers, authors and music labels.