OpenAI and The New York Times Put AI-Training Fair Use Before a Federal Judge
On September 8, 2026, Reuters reported that OpenAI, Microsoft, The New York Times and author plaintiffs had filed competing summary-judgment motions asking a Manhattan federal judge to decide whether model training on copyrighted works is fair use.
Inside Practice · SEPTEMBER 9, 2026 · 1 MIN READ
On September 8, 2026, Reuters reported that OpenAI, Microsoft, The New York Times and author plaintiffs had filed competing summary-judgment motions asking a Manhattan federal judge to decide whether model training on copyrighted works is fair use. The filings, made on September 4, place the transformative-purpose argument against claims of market substitution in consolidated litigation, after earlier California decisions reached materially different reasoning. Law firms and legal departments should avoid treating model training provenance as a settled issue merely because a provider prevailed elsewhere. Procurement files should preserve representations about training data, indemnities and model versions because a ruling could alter risk allocation without changing the usability of deployed products overnight.