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A judge on Tuesday (February 11) said that a former competitor of Thomson Reuters was not permitted to copy the company’s content to build an AI-based legal platform according to U.S. copyright law.
This marks a major moment within the world of AI, with the Canadian company being a content-driven technology giant that covers news and offers tools in various categories. This includes several AI-powered solutions.
The case concerns its online legal research service and proprietary database named Westlaw.
It was U.S. Circuit Judge Stephanos Bibas who made the decision, with this becoming the first U.S. ruling on the topic of fair use in AI-related copyright litigation.
BREAKING AND SERIOUSLY HUGE — @ThomsonReuters WINS summary judgment on direct infringement and and fair use in Ross! No details in the one- page order … yet. pic.twitter.com/eTb2sOBn2M
— Adam Eisgrau (@AdamEisgrau) February 11, 2025
It’s this ‘fair use’ legal theory that has become a key defense for technology companies within copyright cases brought by authors, record labels, artists and more.
Thomson Reuters is the parent company of Reuters News, with a spokesperson sharing more about the outcome within an article: “We are pleased that the court granted summary judgment in our favor and concluded that Westlaw’s editorial content, created and maintained by our attorney editors, is protected by copyright and cannot be used without our consent.
“The copying of our content was not ‘fair use’.”
Thomson Reuters AI and copyright case becomes first ruling on the topic
This case isn’t the first to bring up a similar situation where one party has been accused of training AI based on another’s content.
It’s become an argument against many new AI tools, but not a lot is known about the direction it will go in legally going forward. This includes the rise of image generators, with some able to create depictions of public figures.
It’s not known how such realistic images of real people can be made possible, but a technology-focused law firm raised the issue back in August.
Attorney Charles-Theodore Zerner, of Munck Wilson Mandala law firm based in the US, said in a blog post that Grok 2 has “very few safeguards.” He warned that the platform was able to create “deepfakes, copyrighted characters, and potentially offensive content.”
Some major tech firms like OpenAI, Meta and Microsoft are facing lawsuits over the use of written content.
Featured Image: via Jason Zhang on Wikimedia Commons
