AI training of copyrighted material not fair use: Third Circuit

Filed 1h ago · Via Courthouse News · The Buffoon Desk

THIS STORY IS SCORED

Entrance of the Gladiators

Fučík — U.S. Marine Band · Public Domain

Photo: Baker, Cornelia, 1855- · No restrictions · via Wikimedia Commons

The Third Circuit affirmed a ruling against now-defunct AI startup ROSS Intelligence, finding it infringed Thomson Reuters' copyright by training its legal AI on Westlaw's headnotes after being denied direct access. ROSS had obtained the headnotes through a third party, then used them to build a product meant to compete directly with Westlaw.

Writing for the panel, Judge Tamika Montgomery-Reeves found Westlaw's headnotes showed enough editorial 'creative spark' to qualify for copyright protection, and that ROSS's use of them for AI training was 'minimally transformative at best.' The court also found the use would damage Westlaw's position both in the legal-research market and in any future market for licensing headnotes to AI developers.

The panel, which included appointees of Presidents Obama, Trump and Biden, was unanimous, with the opinion explicitly rejecting the framing that this was a landmark AI case rather than 'an ordinary copyright case.'

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

Judges saying quietly that a fight everyone billed as historic is actually pretty simple is its own kind of news. A company got denied the front door, went in through a side door anyway, and used what it found to build a competing product, which is the sort of thing copyright law was written for long before anyone said the words artificial intelligence. The ruling won't slow down the argument about AI training generally, but it does suggest courts aren't going to be dazzled by the technology into ignoring what actually happened.

Source: Read the original at Courthouse News → Scored: Entrance of the Gladiators · Fučík — U.S. Marine Band · CC BY 4.0

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