The state court of California has issued a verdict in a case where Thomson Reuters sued Ross Intelligence, an artificial intelligence company, for copyright infringement by using legal research content to train AI. The court ruled in favor of Thomson Reuters, marking a significant case involving the training of AI using intellectual property data.
Ross Intelligence extracted data from Westlaw, Thomson Reuters’ legal document search tool, to train AI, claiming it was publicly available information without existing copyright. However, Thomson Reuters argued that the content on Westlaw was curated by editors and summarized, making it ineligible for fair use. The development of Ross Intelligence’s tool had a detrimental impact on the company.
Central to the case was the comparison of 2,830 sample questions with the content in Westlaw documents, leading the court to believe Ross Intelligence had utilized copyrighted content for learning purposes, not just public legal documents as claimed.
This case dates back to 2020, and Ross Intelligence ceased operations in 2021 due to financial constraints, with CEO Andrew Arruda acknowledging the lawsuit as a contributing factor to the company’s downfall.
Source: The Verge, Image from Wikipedia
TLDR: Thomson Reuters wins lawsuit against Ross Intelligence for copyright infringement in using legal content to train AI, leading to the latter’s closure due to financial difficulties.
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