DOJ Sides With OpenAI in Landmark Fair Use Filing, Impacting Music AI Suits

The federal government has officially entered the fight over artificial intelligence and copyright law, and it is backing the tech sector. According to a report from Music Business Worldwide, the Department of Justice filed a 20-page Statement of Interest on September 1 in the ongoing copyright lawsuit brought against OpenAI by The New York Times. The filing, signed by Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward, asserts that training large language models on copyrighted works without a license qualifies as fair use and does not violate federal copyright law. The brief leans on Donald Trump’s executive orders from January 2025 and June 2026, alongside a National Policy Framework published in March. In the filing, the DOJ argues that copying text to train an AI model is "a use of a different kind or character," calling it "extraordinarily transformative." The government also claims the training phase does not damage market demand because it "does not reveal anything to the public at all." While Judge Sidney Stein is free to disregard the DOJ's guidance, this marks the first time Washington has formally intervened in AI copyright litigation. The filing explicitly targets written text, leaving master recordings and compositions unmentioned across its 20 pages. Still, the legal standard cuts across industries. Major record companies and publishers currently have lawsuits moving through courts against AI music platforms like Suno, Udio, and Anthropic. If judges accept the DOJ's framework that training models constitutes protected fair use, the music business will lose its primary legal shield. The majors assumed legacy copyright enforcement would hold the line, but Washington just signaled that tech expansion comes first.