In early February, the Delaware district court found that an AI-powered model trained with Thomson Reuters’s legal research platform (Westlaw) infringed on copyright.
In Thomson Reuters Enterprise Centre GMBH v. ROSS Intelligence Inc., legal research startup Ross Intelligence developed a legal search engine using a natural language AI model in direct competition with Westlaw. Ross hired a third party, LegalEase Solutions, to compile questions and answers for its training database. LegalEase allegedly used Westlaw’s headnotes to do so, prompting whether using headnotes to train AI is defensible by fair use. The court ruled for Thomson Reuters, concluding that the headnotes are original works and Ross’ AI tool was a competitor in the market which copied directly from them without transforming it in a meaningful way.
Canadian courts could consider this ruling as similar suits begin to appear. In November of 2024, a civil suit was filed by CanLII, a nonprofit organization with its own legal search engine. It alleges that defendant Caseway AI systematically downloaded information from the CanLII database against its Terms of Use. Caseway then used this information to train its model. Specifically, CanLII points to the curated, catalogued, and enhanced secondary sources (the “CanLII Works”) in claiming copyright infringement.
There are some distinctions to note between the two cases. First, unlike Thomson Reuters, CanLII is a nonprofit organization and does not hold a similar position in the market as a competitor to Caseway. Second, the non-generative AI system in Thomson Reuters takes user text and outputs judicial decisions, whereas Caseway’s AI is generative and akin to OpenAI’s models.
The test for fair dealing/fair use in each country share some similarities, and in the process of analyzing purpose, character, nature, amount, and effect, these differences may introduce complexities that Thomson Reuters did not need to address. For example, the Delaware judgment’s reliance on the purpose and character of Ross’ AI product as a commercial competitor to Thomson Reuters’ Westlaw, as well as its effect of impacting Westlaw’s position in the market, may not be favourable to a plaintiff non-profit organization like CanLII. While CanLII’s strongest claim comes from Caseway’s violation of their Terms of Use, The Canadian courts have a unique opportunity to consider supporting efforts to provide free access to law. As Canada’s major free legal database and search engine provider, CanLII’s website is a valuable resource for the public. Perhaps the protection of public interest for not just CanLII, but future resources that seek to improve access to justice, will appear in this case and future considerations.