The Trump administration files a brief supporting OpenAI in its dispute with The New York Times, saying training LLMs on copyrighted works is generally fair use

The Trump administration has filed a brief supporting OpenAI in its dispute with the New York Times (NYT.N) and several other newspapers …

Reuters 2026-09-02 Blake Brittain

Context & Ripple Effects

The New York Times’ 2023 suit put a major publisher’s claim that its journalism was used in AI training before a federal court. OpenAI’s early attempt to cut back the case did not end the central dispute: the court kept the main copyright claims alive in 2025.

The administration’s filing adds an executive-branch view to litigation that had already exposed unsettled fair-use doctrine. It shifts the fight from OpenAI’s defense alone toward whether copyright limits on training should be weighed against a stated U.S. interest in AI development.

First-order effects

OpenAI gains formal federal support for its argument that model training on copyrighted works is generally fair use, while The New York Times must rebut that position alongside OpenAI’s own defense.
The filing does not resolve the case: the court still must decide the copyright claims that survived OpenAI’s failed dismissal effort.

Second-order effects

Other news publishers pursuing or weighing training-related claims face a more consequential legal record, because a government fair-use position can strengthen AI companies’ shared defense strategy.
Microsoft, which was named alongside OpenAI in the Times’ original 2023 complaint, benefits from a framing of training as a general legal question rather than a company-specific act.

Third-order effects

If courts adopt the government’s approach, copyright would become a weaker mechanism for publishers to demand control or payment for training uses, pushing disputes toward output reproduction and redistribution instead.
The intervention points to AI copyright policy becoming part of industrial policy, with federal positions on fair use shaping the operating latitude of model developers.

The trend: AI-training copyright litigation is evolving from private disputes over content use into a contest over whether copyright law should constrain national AI development.

Discussion

@halsinger Hal Singer on x
Of course the administration would take the side of OpenAI—and their contributions to Trump's inaugural fund—in a dispute with a news publisher
@edtarnowski Ed Tarnowski on x
DOJ files in OpenAI copyright case, arguing that training on copyrighted material (not recreating and redistributing it) doesn't violate copyright law It also points out that requiring AI labs to license all copyrighted material for training would distort the market by disadvanta…
@anupamchander Anupam Chander on x
I just read the statement that the US DOJ filed in the NY Times v. OpenAI case. It strongly argues that LLM reading of copyrighted works for training is fair use. It also rejects Copyright Office's pre-publication theory of “market dilution
@jason_kint Jason Kint on x
DOJ says the U.S. has a “strong interest” in whether AI training is fair use. But its filing isn't neutral: it frames copyright enforcement as a threat to AI dominance and urges the court to reject publisher claims. That's the government siding with OpenAI and Microsoft. 2/2
@adameisgrau Adam Eisgrau on x
SEISMIC for @OpenAI: @TheJusticeDept has filed a 20pg Statement w/ the SDNY affirming: training gen AI on © works is lawful fair use; the doctrine is vital to US interests; “dilution” is not cognizable harm" + mandating training data licensing would be “legally incorrect”: 🔥
@jason_kint Jason Kint on x
Trump admin just inappropriately put its thumb on the scale supporting OpenAI in the NYT's copyright case over the unauthorized use of its journalism. Courts should decide if AI companies can exploit publishers' work without permission or payment - not political appointees. 1/2
@mikeisaac Rat King on x
the Department of Justice filed what it calls an “historic” letter of interest in the NYT vs OpenAI/MSFT lawsuit, supporting OpenAI. Trump admin argues it is in the “national interest” to support OAI in the copyright case. NYT sent us statement with vigorous pushback below:
r/singularity r on reddit
US government backs OpenAI in New York Times copyright case (Training is NOT infringement) [It's over for humans that create content]
@andrewcurran_ Andrew Curran on x
In coordination with this this, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick told G20 leaders this morning that counties should embrace fair use.
@ednewtonrex Ed Newton-Rex on x
The Trump admin has always sided with big tech on the question of whether AI training is fair use, so their position here isn't a surprise But it seems notable they have weighed in on this lawsuit at all. I suspect they wouldn't bother if they didn't think the NYT might win.
@eriqgardner Eriq Gardner on x
I don't think this will have immediate impact on the judge's very consequential coming decision but these cases probably will eventually get to the Supreme Court... https://www.documentcloud.org/ ...
@andrewcurran_ Andrew Curran on x
'At a minimum, the creative possibilities and public benefits that LLM training advances far outweigh any competitive harm (even assuming such harm is cognizable). The entire reason that Al models are rapidly reshaping the economy and national security is that they help people, i…
@andrewcurran_ Andrew Curran on x
The Trump administration filed a brief supporting OpenAI against the New York Times. The Department of Justice told the court that the United States has a strong interest in ‘rejecting any argument that training LLMs on copyrighted texts violates copyright law,’ including on nati…
@bobbyallyn Bobby Allyn on x
Reminder: Among the remedies NYT is seeking if OAI is found to have infringed on the paper's copyright is that OAI destroy its model weights entirely and retrain the systems from scratch on clean datasets that do not include NYT's work
@asgwoodward Stanley E. Woodward, Jr on x
🚨Last night, the Justice Department filed a historic statement of interest arguing that the training of AI large language models on written works does not violate copyright law under the doctrine of “fair use.
@bc_butler Brandon Butler on x
They're right! The brief hits all the high points quite well, leaning appropriately on the Constitutional purpose of copyright and the compelling analysis in the Google Books case. Plus, a stern rebuttal of the wildly mistaken “market dilution” argument.
@carnage4life Dare Obasanjo on bluesky
The U.S government backs OpenAI in its lawsuit against the New York Times arguing that training AI on copyrighted data is fair use. — I find this fascinating mainly because they believe the opposite if it's Chinese open weight models training on the output of American frontier …
r/ChatGPT r on reddit
US government backs OpenAI in New York Times copyright case

Chronicles