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) …

Reuters 2026-09-03 Blake Brittain

Context & Ripple Effects

The New York Times opened a major media-industry challenge to OpenAI and Microsoft in 2023, alleging that millions of its articles were used in model training. OpenAI has fought to narrow the case, while the earlier dismissal of the Raw Story and AlterNet training suit turned on the publishers’ failure to show sufficient harm rather than a definitive fair-use ruling.

The administration’s filing gives OpenAI’s training defense institutional backing ahead of a consequential ruling. It enters a dispute where legal assessments of the relevant fair-use precedents had been mixed, rather than resolving the underlying copyright question.

First-order effects

OpenAI and Microsoft gain the Justice Department’s argument that training LLMs on copyrighted works is generally fair use, strengthening their position against The New York Times’ infringement claims.
The New York Times must contest not only the companies’ defense but the federal government’s proposed interpretation of how copyright applies to model training.

Second-order effects

Other news publishers pursuing or weighing training-related claims face a more difficult litigation posture if courts give weight to the government’s fair-use framing.
AI developers obtain a clearer basis to resist demands for training-data licensing or damages, while publishers have greater incentive to distinguish training from permissible uses through evidence of market harm.

Third-order effects

If courts adopt the administration’s approach, copyright would become a weaker mechanism for publishers to control general-purpose model training, shifting leverage toward narrowly tailored claims over outputs or demonstrated harm.
The dispute places AI training rules within state-backed industrial policy: federal legal positions may shape competitive conditions for model developers alongside private copyright enforcement.

The trend: The fight over AI training is becoming a contest over whether copyright can govern access to the text corpus used to build general-purpose models.

Discussion

@mtslive @mtslive on x
SITUATION DETECTED: The US government has sided with OpenAI against the New York Times. The DoJ says training an LLM on copyrighted works does not violate copyright law, and that treating it as infringement would hurt US science, prosperity, and national security.
@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.
@mikeisaac Rat King on x
story here summary judgements from plaintiffs and defendants are due friday. timing of this statement is particularly interesting especially since amicus briefs are not due till some time in october https://www.nytimes.com/...
@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/ ...
@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
@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
@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
@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…
@7ohntitor John Titor on x
whatever your thoughts on AI, you should at least be celebrating the death of copyright. this is so awesome
@chombabupe @chombabupe on x
If companies can freely scrape others work that later, a chatbot can claim to be its own, then there is no point putting out quality work. Which in turn means less training data for future models. This is a “shortsighted” victory with cascading consequences.
@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”: 🔥
@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.
@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…
@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.
@dr_gingerballs @dr_gingerballs on x
Say goodbye to non-paywalled content on the internet, say hello to the slop bazooka! The US is dismantling the very fabric of its law and order.
@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:
@allgarbled Gabe on x
The ruling seems to hinge on how “transformative” training is, and this made me wonder if it could leave the door open to distillation being considered copyright infringement since you could argue that it's not “transformative.
@gregoryconti19 Gregory Conti on x
Troubling that the official position of this supposedly “conservative” government is that property rights don't matter if they obstruct an administration's favored industry.
@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…
@mattworkman Matt Workman on x
“training an LLM on copyrighted works does not violate copyright law”
@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
@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
@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/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]
r/ChatGPT r on reddit
US government backs OpenAI in New York Times copyright case
r/technology r on reddit
Trump Administration Sides With OpenAI in New York Times Copyright Lawsuit
r/OpenAI r on reddit
Trump Administration Sides With OpenAI in New York Times Copyright Lawsuit
r/Journalism r on reddit
Trump Administration Sides With OpenAI in New York Times Copyright Lawsuit
r/ArtistHate r on reddit
The US government has sided with OpenAI against the New York Times. The DoJ says training an LLM on copyrighted works does not violate copyright law …
r/law r on reddit
US government backs OpenAI in New York Times copyright case

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