The Trump administration filed a legal brief in Manhattan federal court supporting OpenAI in its copyright dispute with The New York Times. This filing marks the first time the U.S. government has formally intervened in the wave of copyright lawsuits against AI companies.
Government lawyers argue that training large language models on copyrighted works generally constitutes fair use. The brief describes AI training as an extraordinarily transformative process essential to U.S. national security and scientific advancement.
The New York Times sued OpenAI and its primary financial backer, Microsoft, in 2023. The lawsuit alleges the unauthorized use of millions of articles to train AI models like ChatGPT.