Washington, D.C. – Today, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on the Administrative State, Regulatory Reform, and Antitrust, Rep. Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, and Rep. Hank Johnson, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, Artificial Intelligence, and the Internet, submitted an amicus brief opposing the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) bizarre argument that there is some sort of national security exception to current copyright law that allows AI companies to train their models on copyrighted work, including New York Times journalism, without compensation.

The brief, filed in the Southern District of New York in In re OpenAI, Inc. Copyright Infringement Litigation, reminds the court that the arguments in DOJ’s brief violate the plain text of the Copyright Act, which does not contain any national security exception to allow private companies free and unfettered use of copyrighted materials.

“National security is not a fair use factor under the Copyright Act. […] To treat it as a fair use consideration would be to add to the Copyright Act a national security exception that Congress did not enact,” the lawmakers wrote.

The dispute stems from allegations that OpenAI and Microsoft used New York Times journalism without permission to build AI products that compete with the newspaper. On September 1, DOJ intervened to support AI companies, arguing that restricting their use of copyrighted texts would threaten American AI development and national security. DOJ’s filing reportedly surprised even the government’s own copyright and patent experts.

Copyright law allows some uses of copyrighted work without permission, under a set of rules known as “fair use.” But before “fair use” doctrine applies, the courts must consider the circumstances—including how the work was used, how much was copied and whether the copying harms the market for the original work. Instead, DOJ is inviting the court to jettison federal statutes and case law and rule that AI companies have special rights based on specious national security claims.

The lawmakers urge the court to reject DOJ’s arguments and uphold legal protections that ensure fair compensation to millions of American content creators including writers, journalists, and artists.

The full brief is available here.