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Trump Administration Backs OpenAI Against New York Times Copyright Challenge

From Le Figaro · () French

Translated from French and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

News Documents & data In the courts
  • The Trump administration backed OpenAI in its long-running copyright dispute with The New York Times over the use of Times content to train AI models.
  • Government lawyers urged the court to reject the argument that training large language models on copyrighted texts necessarily violates copyright law.
  • The Times accused the administration of siding with a small group of billion-dollar companies at the expense of creators, while estimating its alleged losses at several billion dollars.

The Trump administration has entered the long-running legal fight between OpenAI and The New York Times on the side of the ChatGPT maker. The Times accuses OpenAI of infringing copyright by using its content to train artificial intelligence models.

For all these reasons, the United States has a major interest in ensuring that this court rejects any argument that training large language models on copyrighted texts would violate copyright law.

· U.S. government lawyersThe filing set out the administration’s argument in support of OpenAI.

In a 20-page filing submitted to the federal court in New York, government lawyers cited scientific progress, economic growth and national security. They argued that the United States has a major interest in ensuring the court rejects any claim that training large language models on copyrighted texts necessarily violates copyright law.

Multibillion-dollar companies

· Graham JamesThe New York Times spokesman criticized the administration’s position.

A New York Times spokesman, Graham James, criticized the administration for siding with a handful of “multibillion-dollar companies” rather than creators. He said allowing companies to appropriate content without permission or payment would threaten the future of human-created material, which society depends on and artificial intelligence needs to function.

Compromising the sustainability of human-created content, on which a healthy society depends and which AI needs to function.

· Graham JamesJames described the alleged consequences of using creators’ work without permission or payment.

The dispute began nearly three years ago, when the Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft in late December 2023. The newspaper alleged violations involving its copyrighted content and journalistic work, and estimated the damage at “several billion dollars.” Neither OpenAI nor Microsoft had responded to the government’s filing, known as a statement of interest, at the time of publication.

Several billion dollars

· The New York TimesThe newspaper’s estimate of the damage it said it suffered.
About this summary

Originally published by Le Figaro in French. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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