DOJ backs OpenAI's fair-use defense in NYT training case

The U.S. Department of Justice filed a 20-page statement of interest in Manhattan federal court on September 1, urging the judge overseeing The New York Times' copyright suit against OpenAI and Microsoft to rule that training large language models on copyrighted works is fair use. It is the first time the U.S. government has weighed in on the wave of cases brought by copyright owners including authors, publishers, music labels and news outlets, TechCrunch reported. Two of the AI experts we track shared the story within a day.

The brief was signed by Associate Attorney General Stanley E. Woodward, Jr., Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate, and DOJ Senior Counsel Michael Weisbuch. "The United States has a strong interest in continuing to develop a robust and competitive artificial intelligence industry that sets the standard for the practice and procedure of AI use globally," the filing states. It goes on to argue that "constraining LLM development under a misunderstanding of fair use doctrine would thwart such creative and scientific progress while hindering American prosperity and economic mobility." The brief cites the executive order on removing barriers to American AI leadership that President Trump signed in 2025. "AI dominance is critical to promote national security, prosperity, and economic mobility for all Americans," according to Woodward.

A statement of interest is not binding. Federal agencies use them to outline the government's position in a case without becoming a party to the lawsuit. The Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft, OpenAI's largest financial backer, in late 2023, alleging the companies used millions of its articles without permission to train the models behind ChatGPT.

The DOJ is stepping into a docket already shaped by another ruling this year: Judge William Alsup ordered Anthropic to pay a $1.5 billion copyright settlement to writers, but the fine turned on Anthropic's use of illegal shadow libraries to pirate books, not for AI training itself. That is the fault line the Times case runs down, and the government has now told the court which side it wants.