Government Position
The US government has filed a legal brief backing OpenAI in its copyright fight with The New York Times and other publishers. The Department of Justice said training artificial intelligence models on copyrighted news content falls under the fair use doctrine in US copyright law. And it warned that if AI companies are blocked from using copyrighted material for training, that would cut against the basic principles of copyright law and slow innovation and scientific progress.
Lawsuit Background
The New York Times sued Microsoft and OpenAI in December 2023. Its claim: ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot were trained on large amounts of Times content and then used that material to produce responses. The dispute comes down to a simple question—does AI training need permission from copyright holders?
Government Arguments
In the brief, the DOJ called AI training a "highly transformative" use of original works and said it does not damage the market value of copyrighted content. But the government also argued that narrowing fair use rules could leave only the biggest tech companies able to pay licensing fees, weakening the competitiveness of the US AI industry.
Next Steps
After discovery, the parties are expected to file new motions asking the court to decide several key issues. For now, the case is still ongoing.