The Trump administration sided with ChatGPT producer OpenAI in ongoing copyright disputes between news organizations and OpenAI. The US government argued that using publishers’ content to train AI models falls under fair use.

This argument was presented to the US District Court for the Southern District of New York in lawsuits filed by organizations such as The New York Times and CNET’s parent company, Ziff Davis. The government stated that a decision in favor of the publishers could hinder AI development and restrict competition.

US Government’s Defense Justifications

The document presented by the federal government stated that legal regulations that hinder the development of the AI ​​​​industry could threaten national security. It was emphasized that these rules could provide an unfair competitive advantage to foreign competitors.

The government stated that it found it contrary to the public interest for large media organizations to create an oligopoly in AI training by creating licensing loopholes. It was argued that these loopholes function as large subsidies for old mainstream media companies.

The administration valued the broad licensing models (LLM) supporting competition against media companies as a positive development. Examples given included independent authors creating visuals using AI or being directed to resources offering different perspectives.

Publishers’ and Industry’s Reaction

Graham James, a spokesperson for The New York Times, stated that the administration sided with trillion-dollar AI companies instead of American creators. James argued that this stance negatively affected both creators and AI developers.

James, stating that creators and AI companies can coexist, emphasized that companies should pay a fair price for using content. He argued that the unauthorized and free use of content weakens the sustainability of human-produced content, which a healthy society needs.

In a lawsuit filed in 2025, Ziff Davis alleged that OpenAI infringed on copyrights while training its AI systems. The New York Times, in a lawsuit filed at the end of 2023, claimed that millions of its articles were used to train ChatGPT, arguing that this was a form of freeloading.

Among those who have filed copyright infringement lawsuits against OpenAI are well-known authors such as George RR Martin. Rival company Anthropic settled its piracy claims with authors for $1.5 billion.

Publishers allege that OpenAI is concealing evidence of how it trains its models, while the company denies these accusations. Do you think AI companies’ use of copyrighted content should be considered fair use?