The US Justice Department has sided with OpenAI in its high-stakes legal battle with the New York Times, arguing in a court filing that using copyrighted content to train artificial intelligence models does not violate copyright law. The filing marks a significant intervention in a case that could reshape the media and technology industries.
The Times first sued OpenAI and Microsoft in December 2023 in Manhattan federal court, alleging that the ChatGPT creator used ‘millions’ of its copyrighted articles to build AI products that directly compete with the newspaper. The case is one of several lawsuits accusing AI companies of copyright infringement, the New York Post reported.
‘The United States has a strong interest in this Court rejecting any argument that training LLMs on copyrighted texts violates copyright law,’ DOJ officials wrote in the brief published September 2.
The DOJ argued that an adverse ruling would hamper development of AI models critical for US national security, noting that ‘foreign adversaries won’t be held back by copyright law.’ The agency also warned that a ruling against OpenAI would harm competition because only the largest technology companies could afford to pay licensing fees for training data.
‘It would be problematic, and legally incorrect, to impose broad copyright liability that would generally render training of AI models impermissible without licensing,’ the DOJ added.
A Times spokesperson pushed back forcefully against the government’s position. ‘The administration is siding with a handful of trillion-dollar AI companies at the expense of the countless American creators whose work they stole,’ the spokesperson said.
The DOJ’s stance appeared to contradict the Trump administration’s own AI framework released in March, which called on Congress to consider collective licensing agreements requiring AI companies to fairly compensate media firms. Evan Swarztrauber, a former FCC adviser, called the filing ‘surprising’ and speculated it ‘may be the result of a disconnect between the DOJ and the White House.’
The News/Media Alliance, representing more than 2,000 outlets, expressed concern over the filing. ‘We understand the draw of economic investment that AI companies are promising, but strict application of the law is required by the courts,’ said Danielle Coffey, the group’s president and CEO.
The case is being closely watched in New York’s media and tech corridors, where numerous publishing companies and AI startups have operations.
