Justice Department Files Brief Supporting OpenAI's Fair Use Claim in NYT Copyright Case

The Justice Department has filed a legal brief in New York federal court arguing that AI training on copyrighted material constitutes fair use. The government contends that restricting such training would undermine national security and competition. The New York Times responded that the administration is siding with tech giants at the expense of creators.

The Justice Department's brief marks the first federal intervention in the fast-growing legal battle between AI developers and content creators, a fight that has drawn dozens of lawsuits from news publishers, authors, and music labels. The government's argument rests on two pillars: national security concerns tied to AI's military and intelligence applications, and competition worries that licensing mandates would concentrate power among the largest tech firms while squeezing out smaller players.

The filing also takes aim at a prior ruling in a separate case against Meta, where a judge suggested AI training should require payment because generated works could compete with human authorship. The government counters that courts should weigh whether AI creates genuine substitutive competition rather than mere readership loss, a distinction that could shape how future copyright cases against AI companies are decided.