Conservative groups tell court that letting AI giants crawl the web threatens news outlets and national security

A right-leaning nonprofit law firm, the Center for American Rights, has filed an amicus brief in the copyright lawsuit that pits OpenAI against a coalition of news publishers in Manhattan federal court. The New York Post, which first reported the filing, said the brief warns that letting AI giants “recklessly crawl the internet,” including past paywalls, would jeopardize news outlets and US national security.

“If [superintelligence] is permitted to recklessly crawl the internet, even past paywalls, then we’ve effectively stripped these smaller companies of their competitive advantage and, worse, permanently solidified these SI companies as the ultimate distributors of our information,” the brief says. It adds that this would erase the incentive for creators to publish free, open content and leave superintelligence companies as the sole provider of news and entertainment.

The signatories include the Article III Project and the Internet Accountability Project, both led by lawyer Mike Davis, along with the Bull Moose Project, Consumers For A Strong Economy and conservative lawyer Joel Thayer. Davis is widely described as close to President Trump, which gives the filing a clear political charge.

The underlying case gives the brief its weight. Plaintiffs including the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune accuse OpenAI of using their content to train models without credit or compensation, while OpenAI argues the use is protected by fair use.

The brief’s central claim is that letting superintelligence models crawl past paywalls would turn a handful of AI companies into the only distributors of news and entertainment. Its authors add a second argument aimed at the same judge: a broad reading of fair use, they say, would make it easier for Chinese firms to steal American intellectual property through distillation, in which an advanced model trains a weaker one at a fraction of the cost and time.

The outcome will not turn on this brief alone. The Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft in December 2023, and Judge Sidney H. Stein refused OpenAI’s bid to dismiss the case in March 2025 but has not ruled on fair use. Last month, the Trump Justice Department filed in support of OpenAI, arguing that training models on copyrighted content does not violate the law — a position that surprised many policy experts.

The signatories say they support the administration’s vision of an American future powered by superintelligence, but insist that strong copyright protection is a precondition rather than an obstacle. As the dispute moves into the substantive phase, briefs from one end of the political spectrum may shape how the court draws the boundary of fair use.