US Justice Department files brief backing OpenAI in NYT copyright battle
The government argues that training large language models constitutes fair use and is vital to maintaining national security.
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- The U.S. Department of Justice filed a formal Statement of Interest on September 1, 2026, in the Southern District of New York backing OpenAI and Microsoft.
- The government brief argues that restricting AI training under copyright claims would hinder creative progress, American prosperity, and national security.
- A spokesperson for The New York Times criticized the filing, accusing the administration of siding with trillion-dollar corporations at the expense of creators.
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has formally intervened in the landmark copyright lawsuit between The New York Times and OpenAI, filing a Statement of Interest in the Southern District of New York on September 1, 2026. The amicus brief, signed by Associate Attorney General Stanley E. Woodward, Jr., represents the first time the federal government has officially weighed in on the fair-use merits of AI model training.
The DOJ brief strongly argues that training large language models on publicly accessible internet content constitutes 'fair use' under U.S. copyright law. Officials stated that forcing AI developers to pay licensing fees for training data would thwart scientific progress and degrade American economic mobility. The government emphasized that maintaining a dominant position in AI capabilities is critical for national security, arguing that restrictive copyright enforcement would cede technological leadership to foreign adversaries.
The New York Times issued a sharp response to the filing, criticizing the administration for intervening on behalf of AI companies. A Times spokesperson stated that the government was 'siding with a handful of trillion-dollar AI companies at the expense of the countless American creators whose work they stole.' The Times continues to argue that AI platforms must negotiate commercial licenses for the proprietary text used to train their models.
The Justice Department's intervention provides a massive legal and political boost to OpenAI and Microsoft as they defend their training practices. By framing AI dominance as an issue of national security and economic prosperity, the federal government is signaling that it considers the growth of the domestic AI sector to be a national priority that outweighs traditional copyright protections. While the advisory brief is not legally binding on Manhattan federal judge Sidney H. Stein, it will heavily influence the court's evaluation of the public interest factor in fair-use analysis.
Will Judge Stein's eventual ruling in the NYT v. OpenAI case adopt the Justice Department's national security framing of the fair-use doctrine?
Still open. When the paper finds out, it will say so here and on the open questions page — including if it got this wrong.