Thomson Reuters has won the first major AI copyright case in the United States.
In 2020, the Media and Technology Conglomerate filed an unprecedented AI copyright lawsuit against legal AI startup loss intelligence. In the complaint, Thomson Reuters alleged that the AI company recreated the material from legal research firm Westlaw. Today, the judge ruled the favor of Thomson Reuters, finding that the company’s copyright has actually been infringed by Ross Intelligence’s actions.
“None of the possible Loss defenses hold water. I reject them all,” Delaware District Court Judge Stefanos Vivas wrote in a summary judgment.
Thomson Reuters and Ross Intelligence did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The generative AI boom has led to the development of many major AI tools through the training of copyrighted works such as books, films, visual artwork, websites, and more, making AI companies copyright protected. There was room for an additional legal battle over how to use the material. There are dozens of litigation currently engulfed through the US court system, as well as international challenges in China, Canada, the UK and other countries.
In particular, Judge Vivas ruled in favor of Thomson Reuters on fair use issues. Fair Use Doctrines are a key element of the way AI companies try to protect themselves from claims that they illegally use copyrighted material. Ideas supporting fair use may be legally permitted to create parody works or use copyrighted works without permission in non-commercial research and news production. That’s what it means. When determining whether fair use applies, the court uses four-factor tests to protect the reasons behind the work, the nature of the work (poetry, non-fiction, private letters, etc.), and the copyright used. How much work has been done and how the use affects the market value of the original. Thomson Reuters won on two of four factors, but Vivas described the fourth as the most important, saying Ross “will compete with Westrow by developing market alternatives.” I have ruled.
Thomson Reuters spokesman Jeffrey McCoy praised the ruling in a statement sent by email to Wired. “We have stated that the courts grant summary judgments in our favour, and that Westlaw’s editorial content, created and maintained by an attorney’s editor, is protected by copyright and cannot be used without our consent. I’m pleased to have concluded,” he wrote. “Copying our content was not ‘fair’. ”
Even before this ruling, Loss Intelligence was already feeling the impact of the court battle. The startup was shut down in 2021, citing the costs of the lawsuit. In contrast, many AI companies, like Openai and Google, still take it in court, but are financially equipped to weather the long-term legal battle.
Still, the ruling is a blow to AI companies, according to Cornell University professor of digital and internet law. Grimmelmann believes Vivas’s judgment suggests that many of the case laws cited as generative AI companies asserting fair use are “unrelated.”
Chris Mammen, a partner at Womble Bond Dickinson, who focuses on intellectual property law, agrees to complicate the fair use debate for AI companies, although it may differ from one plaintiff to another. “It puts fingers on scale to hold that fair use doesn’t apply,” he says.
Updated 2/11/25 5:09 ET: This story has been updated and includes additional comments from Thomson Reuters.
