Prominent conservative lawyer Mike Davis is urging the DOJ to “withdraw its statement of interest in the OpenAI lawsuit.” The DOJ’s support of OpenAI in a copyright lawsuit filed by the New York Times seems to contradict the White House AI framework.
In an op-ed for Fox News, Davis maintained that the Trump DOJ should withdraw its recently filed “ill-advised” statement of interest in OpenAI’s lawsuit which argues that Big Tech’s training of large AI models on copyrighted text is “fair use.”
The lawyer and conservative political strategist also reminded the public that training large AI models on copyrighted material is “largely intended for limited free use of copyrighted materials for educational purposes in classrooms.”
Davis goes on to argue that this position would legalize unpaid scraping, asserting that the government’s stance would let Big Tech copy and commercialize “every creative work in America without permission or payment.”
The attorney also cited China and national security rationale as a “scare tactic designed to short-circuit property rights and the rule of law.”
“The government claims this unlimited access is essential for national security, warning any restriction risks losing the AI race to China. That argument is un-American and absurd,” he wrote.
Davis added that claims like “We must steal like China to compete against China” is not a principle, but rather, “a surrender of the rule of law.”
He also predicted that independent creators and conservative media outlets — which he noted helped elect President Trump — would be hit hardest, as they were already “systematically censored, de-platformed, and demonetized” by the same companies “now seeking a free pass to harvest their work.”
“Having largely lost the censorship fight, the left and its Big Tech allies are shifting to theft as the new method of control,” the lawyer surmised.
Licensing, meanwhile, is affordable for firms that spend hundreds of billions of dollars each year, enjoying “near-limitless capital,” Davis said, arguing that giants like Google “will still more than thrive if it has to pay” those whom it “rips off.”
“The music industry already operates this way,” he noted, citing Spotify, which “permits bars, restaurants, and other venues to entertain patrons with others’ music, while the musicians get paid for their work.”
Davis framed the issue around the “4Cs” — children, communities, conservatives, and creators — reminding readers that “Conservatives have long insisted that any serious AI policy must protect” them.
“The latest DOJ policy position fails those,” he wrote. “America must win the global AI competition the American way — through markets that respect property rights, not through government-sanctioned expropriation.”
“Restricting AI companies’ free use of copyrighted material is simple common sense,” Davis stressed, adding, “President Trump’s Justice Department should reverse this rare misstep and withdraw its statement of interest in the OpenAI case.”
As Breitbart News reported, the DOJ filed a brief last week siding with OpenAI in its copyright lawsuit with the New York Times, arguing that training AI systems on copyrighted material counts as fair use.
But the Department of Justice’s brief — which is also reportedly the first time the federal government has weighed in on copyright lawsuits regarding AI training — does not completely align with the Trump Administration’s AI framework released earlier this year.
Alana Mastrangelo-Wrask is a reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on Facebook and X at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.