The U.S. Government supports OpenAI's copyright litigation position that AI training is protected by “reasonable use”

On 3 September, the Wall Street Journal reported that the United States Government had submitted documents to the Court in support of OpenAI's position in a copyright dispute with publishers, such as The New York Times, that the use of news content to train artificial intelligence models was consistent with the “reasonable use” principle of United States copyright law. The United States Department of Justice stated in its paper that restricting the use of copyright-protected content training large language models by AI companies would run counter to the fundamental principles of copyright law and impede innovation and scientific progress. The New York Times sued Microsoft and OpenAI in December 2023, accusing ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot of using a large number of Times content training models and generating answers. According to the United States Government, AI training is “highly transformational” for original works and does not compromise the market value of copyrighted works; tightening the rules of rational use could result in only large technology companies being able to pay the authorized costs and undermine the competitiveness of AI industries in the United States. After the exchange of evidence has been completed, the parties concerned are expected to file a new motion for a decision on some of the core disputes。