Trump administration backs OpenAI in New York Times copyright case

The New York Times sued OpenAI in December 2023, alleging the AI lab trained its systems on the newspaper’s articles without permission and seeking billions of dollars in damages from both OpenAI and Microsoft.

This week the Trump administration entered the case by filing a statement of interest that argues the lawsuit threatens the fair‑use doctrine that underpins AI model training.

Government argument for fair‑use protection

U.S. attorneys representing the administration wrote, “The New York Times seeks to narrow fair‑use doctrine to exclude the training of OpenAl’s large language models (LLMs),” and warned that such a move “would be inconsistent with basic copyright law principles and severely hamper ‘the Progress of Science and useful Arts.’”

The filing emphasized that “LLMs are already helping researchers across fields achieve major breakthroughs” and that limiting their development “would thwart such creative and scientific progress while hindering American prosperity and economic mobility.”

According to the attorneys, “The fair‑use inquiry hinges on the specific facts and uses at matter in each case,” but imposing “broad copyright liability that would generally render training of AI models impermissible without licensing” would be “legally incorrect.”

They concluded that LLM training is “consistent with that creative ‘progress’ that is the basic constitutional objective of copyright itself.”

Political backdrop and related litigation

President Trump’s involvement follows a personal dispute with the Times, as the former president is pursuing a defamation suit against the newspaper.

The administration has a history of filing statements of interest in private lawsuits, a tactic officials have described as “incredibly” effective for advancing policy goals.

Beyond the Times case, several other media organizations have sued AI firms over alleged unauthorized training, including the Center for Investigative Reporting, the Chicago Tribune, and the New York Daily News.

In a 2025 ruling, a judge allowed Anthropic to train models on lawfully purchased books but held the company liable for piracy, resulting in a $1.5 billion settlement with authors.

At the same time, dozens of outlets have signed licensing agreements with OpenAI, such as the Associated Press, Axel Springer, and Vox Media, indicating a parallel trend toward collaborative content use.

In 2025 the Times itself entered a licensing deal with Amazon, permitting its editorial content, including news articles and recipes, to appear in Amazon’s generative AI tools.

Implications for the AI and media landscape

The Trump administration’s stance could shape how courts interpret fair‑use for AI training, potentially influencing future disputes between publishers and AI developers.

If the court accepts the government’s argument, AI labs may continue to train on copyrighted material without securing licenses, preserving the rapid advancement of large language models.

Conversely, a ruling that limits fair‑use could compel AI firms to negotiate extensive licensing deals, altering cost structures and possibly slowing innovation.

Media companies watching the case will likely assess whether to pursue litigation, seek licensing arrangements, or adjust their content‑distribution strategies based on the emerging legal precedent.

Stakeholders in both the technology and publishing sectors should monitor forthcoming court filings and any additional statements of interest that may signal further governmental involvement.

Why This Matters: The administration’s support for OpenAI could set a legal benchmark that determines whether AI can keep learning from existing news content without paying royalties.