Arguing that allowing models to train on copyrighted work is essential for 'American prosperity,' the Trump administration has intervened in The New York Times' copyright lawsuit against OpenAI.
The administration filed a statement of interest this week, supporting OpenAI's argument that training AI models on copyrighted text constitutes fair use.
This legal action, filed in December 2023, alleges that OpenAI unlawfully trained its systems on The New York Times' articles and seeks billions in damages from both OpenAI and Microsoft.
U.S. attorneys wrote in the statement that 'The New York Times seeks to narrow the fair-use doctrine to exclude the training of OpenAI's large language models (LLMs).' They argued this would be inconsistent with copyright law principles and severely hamper 'the Progress of Science and useful Arts.'
The attorneys continued that 'LLMs are already helping researchers across fields achieve major breakthroughs' and that constraining this development would thwart progress while hindering American prosperity and economic mobility.
The administration has frequently used statements of interest to advance policy goals, having previously argued for fair use in its National AI Legislative Framework. Additionally, President Trump has a personal history of conflict with The Times, including a separate defamation suit.
The outcome of this case could set a precedent for other media outlets. Copyright disagreements have intensified recently, including lawsuits from the Center for Investigative Reporting, Chicago Tribune, and New York Daily News. In a 2025 decision, a judge ruled Anthropic could legally train on purchased books but faced liability for piracy, leading to a $1.5 billion settlement with authors.
Conversely, dozens of media outlets have inked licensing deals with OpenAI, including The Associated Press, Axel Springer, and Vox Media. In 2025, The New York Times also partnered with Amazon to license its editorial content for use in Amazon's generative AI tools.
The attorneys concluded that 'the fair-use inquiry hinges on the specific facts and uses at issue in each case.' They emphasized that imposing broad liability would make training models impermissible without licensing, noting that LLM training is 'consistent with that creative 'progress' that is the basic constitutional objective of copyright itself.'
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