Thomson Reuters victorious in first major AI copyright case in US
The first battle in the war between publishers and AI companies is over, and a big publisher has emerged victorious.
News and legal publisher Thomson Reuters has won its lawsuit in the US District Court of Delaware against AI startup and competitor Ross Intelligence.
The original complaint said that Thomson Reuters’ Westlaw legal research database was “illicitly and surreptitiously used... to acquire access to and copy Plaintiffs’ valuable content” to create Ross Intelligence’s AI-powered tool, an alleged violation of the publisher’s copyright.
In a summary judgment, the judge found that Ross Intelligence’s claim of the “fair use” doctrine did not pass all of the four tests. The judge emphasized that Ross Intelligence failed the “most important element of fair use” — the fact that it was using Thomson Reuters’ data to develop a competing product.
Circuit judge Stephanos Bibas wrote:
“Even taking all facts in favor of Ross, it meant to compete with Westlaw by developing a market substitute... It does not matter whether Thomson Reuters has used the data to train its own legal search tools; the effect on a potential market for AI training data is enough. Ross bears the burden of proof. It has not put forward enough facts to show that these markets do not exist and would not be affected.”
But the case may not apply to some of the biggest, thorniest issues with the biggest AI copyright lawsuits still working their way through the courts. Ross Intelligence’s tool was not using generative AI (like ChatGPT), which takes a user’s query and synthesizes answers derived from vast amounts of training data that often includes copyrighted material.
Major cases brought by authors, artists, and news publishers, such as The New York Times’ lawsuit against OpenAI and partner Microsoft, have yet to settle such alleged copyright violations, which could have massive implications for the entire AI industry.
The original complaint said that Thomson Reuters’ Westlaw legal research database was “illicitly and surreptitiously used... to acquire access to and copy Plaintiffs’ valuable content” to create Ross Intelligence’s AI-powered tool, an alleged violation of the publisher’s copyright.
In a summary judgment, the judge found that Ross Intelligence’s claim of the “fair use” doctrine did not pass all of the four tests. The judge emphasized that Ross Intelligence failed the “most important element of fair use” — the fact that it was using Thomson Reuters’ data to develop a competing product.
Circuit judge Stephanos Bibas wrote:
“Even taking all facts in favor of Ross, it meant to compete with Westlaw by developing a market substitute... It does not matter whether Thomson Reuters has used the data to train its own legal search tools; the effect on a potential market for AI training data is enough. Ross bears the burden of proof. It has not put forward enough facts to show that these markets do not exist and would not be affected.”
But the case may not apply to some of the biggest, thorniest issues with the biggest AI copyright lawsuits still working their way through the courts. Ross Intelligence’s tool was not using generative AI (like ChatGPT), which takes a user’s query and synthesizes answers derived from vast amounts of training data that often includes copyrighted material.
Major cases brought by authors, artists, and news publishers, such as The New York Times’ lawsuit against OpenAI and partner Microsoft, have yet to settle such alleged copyright violations, which could have massive implications for the entire AI industry.
