The U.S. Department of Justice has submitted court documents backing OpenAI and Microsoft in a copyright infringement lawsuit brought by The New York Times, arguing that training artificial intelligence models falls under fair use.
The legal filing represents a key development in the ongoing dispute between news publishers and technology companies over the unauthorized use of published works to build generative AI systems.
Government Argues for Fair Use
In its submission to the court, the Justice Department urged the judge to rule in favor of OpenAI and Microsoft. The government argued that utilizing published content to train AI chatbots constitutes fair use under federal copyright law.
The filing under the Trump administration aligns the federal government with AI developers, who have consistently maintained that analyzing data to train algorithms does not violate copyright protections.
Broader Legal Battle
The New York Times and other publishers have contended that using copyrighted news reporting without authorization or licensing agreements harms content creators and infringes on intellectual property rights.
The stance taken by the Justice Department could carry significant weight as federal courts determine how traditional copyright laws apply to artificial intelligence training practices.
