The Justice Department Just Told a Federal Court That Training AI on News Articles Is Fair Use
In an unusual filing, DOJ sided with OpenAI against The New York Times, arguing that letting publishers block AI training would threaten U.S. AI competitiveness.
Meridians Tech Desk
Published 9 September 2026 · Updated 9 September 2026 · 4 min read
AIThe short answer
- The U.S. Department of Justice filed a formal statement of interest in the consolidated OpenAI copyright litigation, arguing that training large language models on copyrighted text does not violate copyright law.
- The filing came as summary judgment briefing began September 4, 2026, in The New York Times v. OpenAI and Microsoft, before Judge Sidney Stein in the Southern District of New York.
- DOJ argued the U.S. has a strong interest in the court rejecting the publishers' copyright argument, tying it to national AI competitiveness.
- A New York Times spokesperson said the administration is siding with a handful of trillion-dollar AI companies at the expense of American creators.
The U.S. Department of Justice has filed a statement of interest — a legal brief an agency can submit without joining a case as a party — arguing that training AI language models on copyrighted news articles and books does not violate copyright law. It's an unusual intervention in a private lawsuit, and it lands on OpenAI's side against The New York Times and a group of other publishers and authors.
What DOJ argued
“The United States has a strong interest in this court rejecting any argument that training LLMs on copyrighted texts violates copyright law.”
DOJ also argued the country has a strong interest in continuing to develop a robust and competitive artificial intelligence industry, framing a ruling against OpenAI as a risk to U.S. AI competitiveness and to smaller AI companies relative to what the filing calls legacy media. Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward Jr. called it a historic statement of interest, tying it to President Trump's stated position that AI dominance is critical to national security and economic mobility.
Where the case stands
The filing landed in a consolidated case, In re: OpenAI, Inc., Copyright Infringement Litigation (No. 25-md-03143), before Judge Sidney Stein in the Southern District of New York. It merges The New York Times' 2023 lawsuit with claims from other national, regional and local publishers, plus a separate group of book authors represented by the Authors Guild. Summary judgment briefing — where each side asks the judge to rule without a trial — began September 4, 2026. Separately, the news-organization plaintiffs are pursuing sanctions against OpenAI over alleged discovery misconduct in the same litigation.
“The Administration is siding with a handful of trillion-dollar AI companies at the expense of the countless American creators whose work they stole.”
Sources
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