News publishers ask court to give DOJ's fair-use statement no weight

What happened

On 28 September 2026 the news-publisher plaintiffs in the OpenAI copyright multidistrict litigation (S.D.N.Y., 1:25-md-03143, Judge Sidney H. Stein) — The New York Times Company, Chicago Tribune Company, Daily News LP, DP Media Network and other MediaNews Group papers — filed a brief (docket entry #2071) replying to the U.S. Department of Justice's September 1 statement of interest. They ask the court to give the DOJ's statement no weight at all.

According to Bloomberg Law's reporting on the filing, the publishers argue the DOJ's brief came before the parties' summary-judgment motions were filed and before large portions of the briefs were unsealed, so the agency lacked access to internal documents from the tech companies and testimony about whether their AI products substitute for news subscriptions. The publishers say the DOJ premised its position on an administration policy favoring the unimpeded development of AI rather than on the litigation record.

Why it may matter to you

The DOJ's September 1 statement urged the court to hold that training large language models on copyrighted text is fair use — the first time the federal government has formally taken a side in the wave of AI-copyright suits. How much weight the court gives that statement matters to every creator-side case where the fair-use status of training data is disputed.

What is not yet known

How Judge Stein will treat the DOJ's statement when ruling on the pending cross-motions for summary judgment. The DOJ's brief is a statement of interest, not a ruling, and carries no binding authority.