US govt sides with OpenAI in New York Times copyright lawsuit

The United States government has taken the side of OpenAI in a copyright lawsuit filed by The New York Times, according to a court document. The administration defended the practice of training AI models on copyrighted works, stating that it is highly transformative and allows the models to benefit from the exception. The lawsuit, filed in late 2023, accused OpenAI and Microsoft of using millions of articles for training their AI models without permission.

The justice department argued in a 20-page document that creative possibilities and public benefits of AI model training outweigh any competitive harm. They emphasized that constraining LLM development based on a misunderstanding of fair use doctrine would hinder creative and scientific progress, and could create an anti-competitive entry barrier primarily benefiting traditional media companies.

Attorney General Stanley Woodward emphasized that AI dominance is crucial for national security, prosperity, and economic mobility, and the administration will not let the nation fall behind its foreign competitors due to a mistaken understanding of copyright law. The Times' lawsuit focuses on the limited fair use exception, which allows copyrighted material to be used without permission for transformative purposes.

The government argued that training AI models on written works is exceedingly transformative, allowing it to benefit from the fair use exception. The New York Times' spokesman criticized the administration's proposal as undermining the sustainability of human-created content that AI needs to function.