The Trump administration has formally intervened in the New York Times' copyright lawsuit against OpenAI, filing a statement of interest that backs the AI laboratory's central legal defence. The filing was submitted on 1 and 2 September 2026, according to CryptoBriefing, which describes it as the first time the US government has formally intervened in AI copyright litigation involving a major publisher. The Verge reports that the administration has leaned heavily on statements of interest in private litigation, a tool one official has called "incredibly" successful at advancing its policy aims.
What the government argued
The statement supports OpenAI's position that training on copyrighted text is fair use. "The New York Times seeks to narrow fair-use doctrine to exclude the training of OpenAI's large language models (LLMs)," US attorneys wrote, adding that this outcome "would be inconsistent with basic copyright law principles and severely hamper 'the Progress of Science and useful Arts.'"
The attorneys also wrote that "LLMs are already helping researchers across fields achieve major breakthroughs" and that "constraining LLM development under a misunderstanding of fair use doctrine would thwart such creative and scientific progress while hindering American prosperity and economic mobility." CryptoBriefing reports that the brief also invokes national security, framing the case as a matter of national priority rather than a narrow copyright dispute.
The statement conceded that "the fair-use inquiry hinges on the specific facts and uses at issue in each case," but said it would be "problematic" and legally incorrect to impose broad copyright liability that would generally make the training of AI models impermissible without licensing.
The case so far
The Times filed suit in December 2023, alleging that OpenAI unlawfully trained its systems on the newspaper's articles. The complaint seeks billions of dollars in damages from OpenAI and co-defendant Microsoft. These remain allegations: no court has ruled on the underlying infringement claim.
In July 2026 the Times filed a motion for sanctions against OpenAI, alleging misconduct related to discovery and data handling, including claims that OpenAI hid its ability to access training data and manipulated ChatGPT conversations during the litigation. Those accusations are likewise unproven.
The administration had already argued that AI training should count as fair use, making the case in its National AI Legislative Framework, according to the Verge. The Verge also notes that President Trump is currently pursuing a defamation suit against the Times.
Why the precedent matters
The case is watched closely because it could set a template for a wider conflict between publishers and AI laboratories. The Center for Investigative Reporting, the Chicago Tribune and the New York Daily News have brought similar suits. In a milestone 2025 decision, a judge found that Anthropic could legally train its models on lawfully purchased books but could still be held liable for piracy, a split that produced a $1.5 billion settlement with authors.
In parallel, dozens of media outlets have signed licensing deals with OpenAI, including the Associated Press, Axel Springer and Vox Media. The Times itself entered a licensing deal with Amazon in 2025 allowing its editorial content, including news articles and recipes, to appear in Amazon's generative AI tools. Litigation and licensing now coexist across the industry, which reflects how unsettled the economics of training data remain.
Established versus claimed
Established: The administration filed a statement of interest backing OpenAI's fair use argument, and the quoted language is on the record. The Times filed its suit in December 2023 and seeks billions of dollars in damages from OpenAI and Microsoft. The 2025 Anthropic ruling and the resulting $1.5 billion settlement happened. Licensing agreements between OpenAI and numerous outlets, and between the Times and Amazon, exist.
Claimed but not established: The Times' allegation that OpenAI trained unlawfully on its articles has not been adjudicated. OpenAI's position that such training is transformative fair use is a legal argument, not a settled fact, and the court has not ruled on it. The Times' July 2026 sanctions allegations concerning discovery conduct remain accusations. The administration's contention that constraining training would harm American competitiveness and security is a policy claim, not a finding of fact.