Unions Urge Judge to Reject Blanket Fair Use in OpenAI Copyright Case

SAG-AFTRA, the American Federation of Musicians, and the Writers Guild of America East and West are asking a federal judge to reject a fair use exemption for training AI models. The four unions filed a joint amicus brief Thursday in the copyright infringement case against OpenAI, arguing the company is "appropriating the work of middle- and working-class people to develop their technology" by freely using third-party content to train its language models.

The 34-page brief argues a categorical fair use exemption would allow a "potentially enormous transfer of value" from creators to corporations, with the harms falling "not just on companies like the News Plaintiffs, but on the countless professionals behind the work." The unions contend fair use cannot be decided through blanket exemptions and must stay a case-by-case judgment to protect human workers from exploitation, calling the dispute "no more than an ordinary copyright case."

The New York copyright action consolidates suits against OpenAI from the New York Times, Florida and Arkansas papers, The Intercept, other outlets, and writers including Ta-Nehisi Coates, George R.R. Martin, John Grisham, Michael Connelly, Jonathan Franzen, Jodi Picoult, Sarah Silverman, and the Authors Guild. The unions say a ruling that training is categorically fair use would undercut notice-and-bargaining rights for third-party AI training licenses they secured in 2026 negotiations, following the 2023 strikes.

Source: Deadline