Judge Rejects Fair-Use Defense in Westlaw AI Copyright Suit (3)

Thomson Reuters Enterprise Centre GmbH convinced a federal judge an AI-powered legal tool’s ingestion of its data isn’t “fair use” under copyright law.

Judge Stephanos Bibas rejected Ross Intelligence Inc.'s fair-use defense because two of the four fair use factors—the purpose of Ross’s use of headnotes from Thomson Reuters’ Westlaw legal research service and its harm to the market for the originals—favor Thomson Reuters, according to the opinion filed Tuesday in the US District Court for the District of Delaware.

Bibas partially granted summary judgment on Thomson Reuters’ direct copyright infringement claims on more than 2,000 headnotes, ...