The US government has picked a side in one of the most consequential legal battles in AI history. The Trump administration filed a statement of interest in The New York Times’ copyright lawsuit against OpenAI, arguing that training large language models on copyrighted material qualifies as fair use under US law.
The filing, submitted on September 1-2, marks the first time the US government has formally intervened in AI copyright litigation involving a major publisher.
What the government is actually arguing
The administration’s brief frames the case not as a narrow copyright dispute but as a matter of national priority. It cites scientific advancement, economic development, and national security as reasons to protect AI companies’ ability to ingest copyrighted text during the training process.
OpenAI has consistently argued that its use of copyrighted material is transformative, a key factor in fair use analysis. The government’s filing essentially endorses this framing, arguing that the transformative nature of AI technology justifies treating LLM training as fair use. Constraining that process, the brief suggests, would put the US at a competitive disadvantage in the global AI race.
