AI Fair-Use Ruling Lays First Marker as OpenAI, Meta Cases Loom

AI companies and the copyright owners suing them in dozens of cases across the country got their first glimpse into how judges will weigh fair use arguments Tuesday in a Delaware court’s opinion rejecting an AI search engine developer’s invocation of the defense.

Generative AI providers including OpenAI Inc., Meta Platforms Inc., and Anthropic PBC have pointed to the fair use doctrine to fend off accusations they infringed copyrights by using material to train their large language models without permission. Judge Stephanos Bibas partly granted Thomson Reuters’ bid for summary judgment Tuesday, finding Ross Intelligence ...