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 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.