Fair Use Offers Advantages to All Stakeholders

Why Fair Use Matters to AI

The principle of fair use, long recognized as a catalyst for innovation, is now central to the debate over AI training data.

OpenAI’s filing stresses that fair use has driven medical breakthroughs, scientific discoveries, and new technologies that benefit authors and journalists alike.

The New York Times lawsuit, filed in federal court, asks the court to disregard half a century of legal precedent in pursuit of a monetary award.

Supporters argue that overturning fair use would undermine the legal foundation that has enabled modern creativity and progress.

Broad Support Across Sectors

Amicus briefs submitted by the American Council of the Blind, the Association of Research Libraries, the American Library Association, the Consumer Technology Association, and the Business Software Alliance emphasize that the case affects more than large‑language‑model developers.

These groups note that medical researchers, patients, educators of diverse learners, people with disabilities, farmers, independent creators, and software and legal industries all rely on the ability to study and learn from a wide range of sources.

They point out that many users depend on open‑source AI systems rather than training models themselves, making fair use essential for their work.

Restrictions on fair‑use training, they warn, would limit both the institutions building AI and the people who use it.

Authors Alliance’s brief challenges the “market dilution” theory that seeks to protect rightsholders from competitive pressure caused by non‑infringing AI outputs.

It argues that the Copyright Act deliberately leaves competition outside the copyright owner’s control and that aggregate competitive pressure is not cognizable market harm under 17 U.S.C. § 107.

Legal Arguments Against Market Dilution

In the AI Progress brief, the court is urged to reject the plaintiffs’ attempt to extend copyright beyond its established limits.

“AI training uses copyrighted works for a fundamentally different purpose, does not provide the public with substitute access to those works, and does not cause the market harm cognizable under the Copyright Act,” the brief states.

It adds that AI training “enables a broad array of transformative technologies that are already delivering public benefits.”

The brief further asserts that “Copyright exists to promote creativity and progress, not to suppress lawful innovation or protect authors from competition.”

Consequently, settled fair‑use principles compel the conclusion that generative AI training is fair use.

These arguments collectively seek to preserve a legal environment where AI can continue to learn from existing works without incurring prohibitive licensing costs.

Stakeholders across academia, industry, and civil society have filed briefs to ensure that the court upholds the longstanding fair‑use doctrine.

The outcome will influence how AI models are trained, how creators are compensated, and how the public accesses AI‑driven tools.

Why This Matters: the court’s decision will determine whether AI developers can continue to train models on copyrighted material without paying royalties, directly affecting the availability of AI tools for educators, researchers, and creators.