Donald Trump’s administration has backed OpenAI in a lawsuit filed by Encyclopaedia Britannica over copyright concerns.
Encyclopaedia Britannica took OpenAI to court over fears of copyright infringement in March.
The Scottish-founded company claimed that CEO Sam Altman’s company has used 100,000 of Britannica’s online articles as AI training data.
Responding to the lawsuit, an OpenAI spokesperson argued that its AI models are trained on “publicly available data,” adding that the company aims to “empower information.”
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) defended AI training saying it will “never let our Nation be at a disadvantage […] based on a plainly incorrect understanding of copyright law.”
Now, the DOJ has urged the US District Court in New York to drop the case given the training on copyrighted material is “fair use.” The filing emphasises that any effect on copyright holders can’t outweigh the “transformative” purpose of AI.
Other companies targeting OpenAI for copyright lawsuits include major US newspapers such as the New York Times.
In July, AI giant Anthropic agreed to pay a $1.5b settlement to almost 120,000 authors, making it the largest copyright class action settlement in history.
OpenAI is currently facing over 50 active lawsuits.
Photo by Library of Congress on Unsplash.
