OpenAI showcases fair-use briefs in NYT case
OpenAI has published excerpts from amicus briefs backing its fair-use defense in The New York Times' copyright lawsuit, and lists the U.S. government among the filers in the most closely watched AI training case.
OpenAI published a roundup of amicus briefs filed in support of its position that training AI models on copyrighted works is fair use. The page is advocacy, not a neutral summary of the docket, and it shows only the briefs that support OpenAI.
The company lists 12 filers or groups of filers: AI Progress; a coalition of the American Council of the Blind, the Association of Research Libraries, the American Library Association, the Consumer Technology Association and the Business Software Alliance; Authors Alliance; Engine and Developers Alliance; the Foundation for American Innovation; economist Joshua S. Gans; author Kevin Kelly; law professor Matthew Sag; Michael Wall and Sarah Rose Siskind; Public Knowledge; Ron Suskind and Brian L. Frye; and the United States Government. The excerpt provided does not include the text of the government's brief.
Several briefs focus on the fourth fair-use factor, market harm. Authors Alliance asks the court to rule that "market dilution," meaning competitive pressure from non-infringing outputs, is not harm the law recognizes under 17 U.S.C. § 107(4). Gans argues that treating every lost sale as actionable could weaken the incentive to build tools that learn from content. The Foundation for American Innovation asks the court to count national-security value in that analysis. The library and accessibility coalition says limits on training would affect people who use AI systems, including open-source ones, as well as the companies that build them.
OpenAI says The Times' suit pursues "an undeserved payday." The full filings are on the public court docket.