Trump admin supports OpenAI in lawsuit filed by The New York Times over use of protected content

The administration of President Donald Trump backed OpenAI in the lawsuit filed by The New York Times, arguing that training artificial intelligence models with copyrighted works may be protected under fair use law, according to a court document filed on Tuesday.

The news was reported by AFP, which noted that the Department of Justice filed a 20-page document arguing that the benefits of training language models outweigh any potential competitive harm.

In late 2023, The New York Times sued OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, and Microsoft, its main investor, alleging that the companies' artificial intelligence models used millions of the newspaper's articles for training without authorization.

Copyright has become one of the main battlegrounds for the generative artificial intelligence sector. Publishers, musicians and artists have turned to the courts or negotiated agreements to obtain compensation for the use of their content in the development of these technologies.

In its brief, the Department of Justice stated that the "creative possibilities and public benefits that (large language model) training advances far outweigh any competitive harm."

"Constraining LLM development under a misunderstanding of fair use doctrine would thwart such creative and scientific progress while hindering American prosperity and economic mobility," the document argued.

The Department of Justice also argued that the interpretation of the law advocated by The New York Times would create an anti-competitive barrier to entry that would function "primarily as large subsidies for old mainstream media companies."

Stanley Woodward, associate deputy attorney general, stated on Wednesday that Trump has made it clear that "mastery of artificial intelligence is critical" to U.S. national security, prosperity and economic mobility.