• Tuesday's Event: US District Court of Delaware judge Stephanos Bibas issued a partial summary judgment in favor of Thomson Reuters in its copyright infringement lawsuit against legal AI startup Ross Intelligence. Filed in 2020, it's one of the first cases dealing with AI tool legality and training with copyrighted data.
• Similar Lawsuits: Similar lawsuits against OpenAI, Microsoft, etc. are in court and may involve the "fair use" defense of using copyrighted material.
• Thomson Reuters' Statement: The company is pleased with the court's grant of summary judgment, stating that Westlaw's editorial content is protected by copyright and cannot be used without consent. The copying was not "fair use."
• Case Details: This case involved non-generative AI. Ross shut down in 2021, calling the lawsuit "spurious" but unable to raise enough funds during the legal battle. Judge Bibas rejected Ross's fair-use defense, emphasizing how Ross's use affected the market for the original work's value by building a direct competitor.
• Thomson Reuters' Lawsuit: Thomson Reuters sued over Ross's use of its Westlaw search engine, which indexes both copyrightable and non-copyrightable material. Ross turned Westlaw headnotes into numerical data for its AI. After Thomson Reuters rejected licensing, Ross bought 25,000 Bulk Memos using Westlaw headnotes for training data. Ross CEO claimed the Westlaw data was "added noise," but the judge found evidence of actual copying.