NEW YORK CITY, New York: The U.S. government has backed OpenAI in its copyright dispute with The New York Times and other newspapers, arguing that training artificial intelligence models generally makes fair use of copyrighted material.

The Trump administration filed a brief in Manhattan federal court on September 1 supporting OpenAI over its use of newspaper content to train the large language models behind ChatGPT.

The filing appears to mark the first time the U.S. government has weighed in on a wave of lawsuits brought by copyright owners, including authors, publishers, music labels and news outlets, over the use of their material to train AI models. The brief carries advisory rather than legal weight but could bolster technology companies fighting the claims.

"The United States has a strong interest in this court rejecting any argument that training LLMs on copyrighted texts violates copyright law" based on concerns including scientific advancement and national security, the brief said.

Spokespeople for The New York Times and OpenAI did not immediately respond to requests for comment on September 2.

"AI dominance is critical to promote national security, prosperity, and economic mobility for all Americans," U.S. Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward said in a statement posted to X. "This Administration will never let our Nation be at a disadvantage relative to our foreign adversaries based on a plainly incorrect understanding of copyright law."

U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick separately told G20 officials at a meeting in North Carolina on September 2 that their countries should embrace fair use and allow AI companies to train their models on creators' work while finding a way to "protect artists."

The New York Times filed its lawsuit in 2023, accusing OpenAI and its largest financial backer, Microsoft, of using millions of newspaper articles without permission to train ChatGPT.

The case is among dozens brought by copyright holders against technology companies including OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta Platforms over what they allege is the misuse of their material to train AI systems.

The pending cases are likely to center on whether AI systems make fair use of copyrighted material by using it to create new, transformative content. The first two judges to consider the issue reached diverging conclusions last year.

The U.S. government agreed on September 1 with technology companies that AI training is "extraordinarily" transformative.

"Beyond the subject matter of this litigation, LLMs are already helping researchers across fields achieve breakthroughs," the brief said. "Constraining LLM development under a misunderstanding of fair use doctrine would thwart such creative and scientific progress while hindering American prosperity and economic mobility."