US Justice Department backs OpenAI's fair-use defence in New York Times case

In a statement of interest filed in the Southern District of New York, the Justice Department argued that training models on news articles is transformative fair use, that licensing mandates would favour large legacy publishers over smaller AI developers, and that US AI leadership is a national-security interest. The filing came days before summary-judgment briefing opened on 4 September in the consolidated OpenAI copyright litigation before Judge Sidney Stein; the Times said the position would let AI companies take content without paying.