OpenAI Says It's "Over" If It Can't Steal All Your Copyrighted Work

Abstraction: OpenAI lobbies White House to expand fair use for AI training data

Key points:

• OpenAI submitted a policy proposal to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy arguing that US AI companies need federal "fair use" protections to scrape copyrighted works for training, or else lose the AI race to China.
• Direct quote: "If the PRC's developers have unfettered access to data and American companies are left without fair use access, the race for AI is effectively over."
• OpenAI framed unrestricted access to copyrighted training data as a matter of "national security," citing DeepSeek's rapid rise as evidence that US AI leadership is not guaranteed.
• Ironically, OpenAI itself previously accused DeepSeek of improperly using its own data without permission — a point omitted from the policy proposal.
• OpenAI faces copyright lawsuits from The New York Times and other publishers; the proposal is an attempt to preempt regulation at the federal level amid growing state-level AI regulation.
• The long-established fair use doctrine allows limited access for quotation and commentary — OpenAI's expansive interpretation for bulk training data scraping is legally contested.

Connections: Openai · Deepseek · AI Training Data · Copyright · AI Policy

Source: https://futurism.com/openai-over-copyrighted-work