US Government Backs Big Tech in AI Copyright Lawsuit, Citing National Security

The U.S. Department of Justice has thrown its support behind AI companies in the copyright infringement lawsuit filed by The New York Times against OpenAI and Microsoft, defining the advancement of the artificial intelligence industry as a matter directly linked to U.S. national security.

According to reports by The New York Times on the 2nd, local time, the U.S. Department of Justice urged the court in an amicus brief submitted the previous day to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York to reject The New York Times' claim that using newspaper content to train large language models (LLMs) violated copyright law.

While the Department of Justice is not a party to the lawsuit, the U.S. government can submit an amicus brief in court proceedings involving the public interest.

The New York Times filed a lawsuit in 2023 alleging that OpenAI and Microsoft used millions of its articles without permission to train AI models such as ChatGPT and Copilot.

The New York Times is seeking damages alongside an order to halt the unauthorized use of its content for AI training.

However, the Department of Justice argued that the use of copyrighted materials for "transformative" purposes in the training process of AI models falls under "fair use," which is permitted by copyright law.

Fair use is a principle under copyright law that exceptionally permits the use of copyrighted works without the copyright holder's permission, depending on the purpose and character of the use and the effect on the market for the original work.

In particular, the Department of Justice defined the advancement of the AI industry as an issue directly tied to U.S. national security.

U.S. Deputy Attorney General Stanley Woodward stated via social media, "The current administration will never allow the United States to be placed at a disadvantage compared to foreign adversaries due to a clearly erroneous interpretation of copyright law."

The Department of Justice also expressed a negative stance on proposals to mandate AI companies to pay for media content.

It cited the reason that exorbitant licensing costs could restrict competition in the LLM market and obstruct smaller AI companies lacking financial resources from entering the market.

The Department of Justice argued that mandating content payments could result in large tech companies capable of affording massive licensing fees monopolizing the LLM market.

It also pointed out that such a system could grant excessive benefits to established major media outlets.

In response, The New York Times spokesperson Graham James criticized the move, stating, "The government is siding with a handful of AI companies valued at trillions of dollars at the expense of countless American creators whose work has been misappropriated."

He emphasized, "AI and creators can both thrive. AI companies simply need to pay fair compensation for the content that makes their products possible."

This marks the second time recently that the U.S. Department of Justice has directly intervened in a major lawsuit involving AI companies.

Last June, the Department of Justice also urged a Mississippi district court to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the NAACP and environmental groups concerning the construction of a data center by Elon Musk's AI company, xAI.

At that time, it also advanced the argument that the development of the U.S. AI industry is directly linked to national security.
 
(Photo: AP, Yonhap News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.