The U.S. government filed a court brief supporting OpenAI’s position in a
copyright dispute with publishers including the New York Times, saying use of
news content to train AI models falls under U.S. copyright fair use. The Justice
Department argued that restricting AI firms’ use of copyrighted material for
model training would violate copyright-law principles, hinder innovation and
scientific progress, and that training is “highly transformative” and does not
harm the market for original works. The filing warned that tightening fair-use
rules could leave only large tech firms able to pay licensing fees and weaken
U.S. AI competitiveness. The New York Times sued Microsoft and OpenAI in
December 2023 alleging ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot used Times content for
model training; parties expect to file new motions after discovery is completed.
