US Justice Department Sides with OpenAI in New York Times Copyright Fight

The Trump administration has entered the legal fray between OpenAI and The New York Times, filing court papers on Tuesday that support the ChatGPT-maker's position in a high-stakes copyright case. The Justice Department argued that training AI models on vast amounts of internet text, including news articles, falls under the "fair use" exception to copyright law.

In its filing, the department contended that the "creative possibilities and public benefits" of such training "far outweigh any competitive harm." It warned that ruling against OpenAI would impede "creative and scientific progress while hindering American prosperity and economic mobility." The government also linked the issue to national security, noting that AI tools can help officials analyze and draw inferences from facts reported in publications like The Times.

The New York Times responded sharply, accusing the administration of siding with "a handful of trillion-dollar AI companies at the expense of the countless American creators whose work they stole." A spokesperson for the paper said AI and creators can coexist if companies pay fairly for content, as copyright law requires. The statement argued that allowing content to be taken without permission would undermine the sustainability of human-created journalism.

The Times filed its lawsuit in 2023, alleging that OpenAI threatened journalists' livelihoods by using their work without authorization, sometimes reproducing articles verbatim through ChatGPT. The case has since drawn support from other news organizations, including the New York Daily News, the Chicago Tribune, Ziff Davis, and the Center for Investigative Reporting. Several authors, including comedian Sarah Silverman, have also sued over the use of their books in AI training.

The Times' complaint focuses on unfair competition, accusing AI companies of free-riding on its investment in journalism to build substitute products without payment. The case is one of many emerging legal disputes as courts grapple with AI technologies that outpace existing legal frameworks.