Summary
OpenAI has published selected arguments from court submissions supporting fair use for training generative AI models. The excerpts present legal positions from groups and individuals; they are not a court ruling.
OpenAI published selected excerpts from court submissions supporting the position that training generative AI models on copyrighted works can qualify as fair use under US law. The excerpts, posted on October 30, 2026, come from submissions by organisations and individuals including library and accessibility groups, Authors Alliance, independent creators, academics and the United States government.
The page presents arguments made in support of fair use in litigation brought by The New York Times. These are the submitters’ legal positions, as excerpted and framed by OpenAI—not a decision by the court.
The arguments in the excerpts
Several submissions contend that model training has a different purpose from the works used to train models: building a general-purpose tool rather than giving users substitute access to the original works. Some argue that competition from new AI-generated material should not, by itself, count as legally cognisable market harm. Others point to potential uses of AI in research, accessibility, education, software development and creative work.
The excerpts also describe how some creators use AI in their businesses. Musician Michael Wall says the tools help him manage operational work and spend more time composing; writer and comedian Sarah Rose Siskind describes using them for administrative tasks, idea development and finding clients. Those accounts illustrate the submitters’ claims about practical benefits, rather than findings about AI’s effects across the creative economy.
The arguments draw on the US fair-use framework in 17 U.S.C. § 107, which weighs multiple factors, including the purpose of a use and its effect on relevant markets. The submissions disagree with the idea that lost sales or competition from new works should automatically count as copyright harm. They argue that the law should distinguish substitution for protected expression from competition by new expression or tools.
What the submissions could mean
The dispute concerns a consequential question for AI development: how copyright law applies when works are used to train models that can generate text and other material. The excerpts contend that treating this training as fair use would preserve room to build and use such tools, while a narrower interpretation could constrain their development and use by organisations that rely on models built by others.
OpenAI says the full filings are available on the public court docket. Its page selects passages that support fair use, so it provides a window into those arguments rather than a complete account of the submissions or the litigation.