US DOJ Intervenes in NYT v. OpenAI Lawsuit, Backing AI Training as Fair Use
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a statement of interest in the New York Times v. OpenAI lawsuit, officially backing OpenAI's position. The DOJ asserted that training large language models on copyrighted data constitutes 'fair use' under copyright law and is crucial for US national security and economic competitiveness. This marks the US government's first public stance on AI copyright issues, potentially setting a monumental legal precedent for the generative AI industry. By framing AI leadership as a national security imperative, the government's intervention could significantly lower legal risks for AI developers training models on public datasets. The DOJ argued that LLM training serves a 'transformative' purpose whose creative potential and public benefits far outweigh potential competitive harm to copyright holders. Representatives for news publishers strongly criticized the stance, arguing that the government is favoring multi-trillion-dollar tech giants over original creators and ignoring constitutional protections.
## BACKGROUND
The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft in December 2023, alleging that millions of its copyrighted news articles were illegally used without authorization to train AI models like ChatGPT. Under US copyright law, the 'fair use' doctrine permits the unconsented use of copyrighted materials for transformative purposes, such as commentary, research, or technological innovation, provided it does not unduly harm the original work's market value.