Trump Administration Sides With OpenAI in Publishers’ Copyright Lawsuits

The Trump administration filed a statement of interest on Tuesday in US District Court for the Southern District of New York, siding with OpenAI in copyright lawsuits brought by The New York Times and Ziff Davis, arguing that the AI company's use of publishers' content to train models constitutes fair use and that a ruling against it could hinder AI development and threaten national security. The New York Times spokesperson Graham James criticized the administration for siding with 'a handful of trillion-dollar AI companies' over American creators, stating that AI companies should pay fairly for content as copyright law requires.

The Trump administration has weighed in on a series of copyright disputes https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/understanding-ai-copyright-fair-use-legal-explainer/ between news organizations and OpenAI, supporting the ChatGPT-maker’s position that its use of publishers’ content to train AI models constituted fair use. The statement of interest of the United States https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.643043/gov.uscourts.nysd.643043.582.0.pdf PDF was filed Tuesday in a series of cases in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, including one initiated by The New York Times and another by Ziff Davis, CNET’s parent company. Ziff Davis filed the suit in 2025, alleging OpenAI infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems. In its filing, the federal government said a ruling in publishers’ favor could hinder AI development, limit competition among AI firms and hurt the country’s competitiveness with foreign developers. “Rules of law that make it significantly more difficult to develop a robust AI industry in the United States … threaten national security and give a competitive advantage to foreign adversaries who are not so encumbered,” the filing states. Graham James, a spokesperson for The New York Times, told CNET in a statement that the administration is “siding with a handful of trillion-dollar AI companies” instead of American creators and that doing so undermines both creators and AI developers. “Both AI and creators can thrive – AI companies simply need to pay fairly for the content that makes their products possible, as copyright law requires,” James said. “The Administration’s proposal to let companies take that content without permission or compensation would undermine the sustainability of the human-created content that a healthy society depends on, and which AI needs to function.” CNET has reached out to representatives for OpenAI and Ziff Davis for comment. The Times initiated the lawsuit at the end of 2023, a year after ChatGPT’s debut. In its initial complaint https://nytco-assets.nytimes.com/2023/12/NYT Complaint Dec2023.pdf PDF , the news organization said large language models, such as those that power ChatGPT, were built using content that included millions of its articles. That training constituted an effort to “free-ride” on the Times’ investment in journalism and create products that compete. The government said it sees LLMs’ ability to help others compete with large media corporations as a positive development. It cited independent authors using AI models to generate images that might otherwise require a photographer or license, and LLMs directing users to “dissenting sources that offer contrary information or perspectives.” “It is not in the public’s interest for the largest technology companies to have an oligopoly on LLM training due to licensing entry barriers that function primarily as large subsidies for old mainstream media companies,” the government stated. Major media companies aren’t the only ones who’ve sued OpenAI over copyright infringement. Authors, including big names like George R.R. Martin, have also accused the company https://www.cnet.com/tech/george-r-r-martin-and-other-authors-sue-chatgpt-maker-openai/ of using their works in model training. OpenAI rival Anthropic, which makes Claude, settled piracy claims https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/anthropics-ai-piracy-settlement-is-getting-close-to-final-approval/ with authors for $1.5 billion, although a judge ruled the company’s use of copyrighted material was fair use. Earlier this summer, publishers accused OpenAI of withholding evidence https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/publishers-openai-copyright-lawsuits-nyt-ziff-davis/ about how it trains its models, claims the company has denied.