Further reporting confirms DOJ brief supports OpenAI's fair-use position
Concluded·New·in the edition since 4 Sep 2026·4 sources·updated 4 Sep 2026
DOJ brief on AI training and the NYT copyright suit
The gist
DOJ Backs OpenAI Fair-Use Argument in NYT Copyright Suit
The federal government's formal intervention signals the administration's position that AI training should be shielded from copyright liability at the training stage. The court must still rule on fair use case by case, but the DOJ framework, if adopted, would shift legal pressure from training toward data acquisition methods and specific outputs.
The full picture
The U.S. Department of Justice filed a statement of interest in the OpenAI vs. New York Times copyright lawsuit, arguing that training large language models on copyrighted text qualifies as fair use. The DOJ described LLM training as 'transformative, spectacularly so,' on the grounds that models learn statistical relationships rather than reproduce content for the same purpose as the original. The administration also contended that training does not substitute for original works in the market, so AI-generated competition alone should not retroactively make prior training unlawful. The DOJ distinguished three separate acts, acquiring training data, training on it, and generating outputs, and focused its fair-use argument on the training stage alone, leaving open separate questions about data acquisition and specific outputs that reproduce protected passages. The filing is advisory rather than binding on the court.
How it developed
First in the edition · 4 September 2026
The U.S.
Department of Justice filed a statement of interest on September 3 in the OpenAI vs. New York Times copyright lawsuit, arguing that training large language models on copyrighted text qualifies as fair use. The DOJ called LLM training 'transformative, spectacularly so,' contending that models learn statistical relationships rather than reproduce content for its original purpose, and distinguished the training stage from separate questions about how data was acquired and whether outputs reproduce protected passages. The administration warned that rules making AI development harder in the United States 'threaten national security and give a competitive advantage to foreign adversaries,' adding that blanket licensing could disadvantage smaller U.S. firms. One commentator said the brief argues on national security grounds to invalidate copyright law and noted 'this is not how law works'.
Sources
Rohan Paul Twitter
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