Department of Justice sides with OpenAI in New York Times Copyright Suit!
The NewYorkTimes.com reported that “The Justice Department told a Manhattan federal court that it was in the national interest for the judge to find that OpenAI did not violate copyright law when it used articles by The New York Times and other publishers to develop artificial intelligence systems.” The September 2, 2026 article entitled “Justice Dept. Sides With OpenAI in New York Times Copyright Suit” (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/02/technology/justice-department-openai-copyright-suit.html) included these comments from Reporters Karen Weise and Mike Isaac:
The filing late Tuesday was the first time the Justice Department weighed in on the use of copyrighted material by A.I. companies, which has led to several lawsuits, including one brought by The Times.
The Justice Department argued that developing A.I. was critical to national security, and that training A.I. systems sufficiently transformed the written works to new material allowed under copyright law. It said the benefits of A.I. “far outweigh any competitive harm.”
The government’s intervention is an escalation in the landmark litigation that could determine whether OpenAI violated the law when it was developing its A.I. systems and had harmed the news industry and other content creators.
Stanley Woodward Jr., the associate attorney general for the Justice Department, called the filing “a historic statement of interest” in a statement posted on social media, adding that President Trump had made clear that “AI dominance is critical to promote national security, prosperity, and economic mobility for all Americans.”
Graham James, a spokesman for The Times, said in a statement that the Justice Department was siding with a handful of “trillion-dollar A.I. companies” at the expense of American creators.
“The administration’s proposal to let companies take that content without permission or compensation would undermine the sustainability of the human-created content that a healthy society depends on, and which A.I. needs to function,” he said.
Representatives for OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment. Microsoft, OpenAI’s partner and a defendant in The Times’s lawsuit, declined to comment.
Anyone surprised?