Trump Administration Sides With OpenAI in New York Times Copyright Lawsuit

The Trump Administration has taken OpenAI's side in the legal dispute between the AI company and the New York Times. The media conglomerate accused OpenAI and Microsoft of copyright infringement in 2023, claiming they had used its articles to train AI tools without permission. On Tuesday, the federal government submitted a letter to the court, arguing that OpenAI's actions were "within bounds."

The letter stated that the U.S. has a "strong interest" in determining whether training AI on copyrighted works constitutes "fair use," as it relates to the country's ability to "retain global leadership in artificial intelligence." The government argued that the Times' interpretation of fair use is "inconsistent" with current copyright law, and a victory for the paper could have serious consequences.

They wrote that constraining large language model (LLM) development under a misunderstanding of fair use doctrine would "thwart creative and scientific progress" while hindering American prosperity and economic mobility. The administration also noted that training LLMs on copyrighted works is "extraordinarily transformative," meaning the systems meaningfully alter their inputs.

They argued that OpenAI's LLMs do not significantly compete with The New York Times' articles. The letter emphasized that conflating AI training with what AI tools produce could lead to problematic implications for copyright law, as it would imply that it would be illegal for human writers to train on the words of others, which they compared to a scenario where Joan Didion typed out Ernest Hemingway's stories to understand how to write.

While the letter focuses on the New York Times and OpenAI, the government stated that their arguments apply to all parties in this case and related cases, including other publishers and authors. Intellectual property lawyer Evan Brown stated that while the U.S. district judge overseeing the case is not obligated to consider the letter, it is likely to be taken seriously as it comes from the Department of Justice.

The New York Times spokesperson criticized the government's stance, stating that both AI and creators can thrive if AI companies pay fairly for the content their products rely on, as copyright law requires.