The long-running copyright litigation\u00a0between Thomson Reuters and ROSS Intelligence is now pending in the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for an interlocutory appeal of the trial judge\u2019s rulings in favor of TR. Recently here, I reported on the 10 amicus curiae briefs filed in support of ROSS, all arguing that the now-defunct AI legal [\u2026]<\/p>\n
The long-running copyright litigation<\/a>\u00a0between Thomson Reuters and ROSS Intelligence is now pending in the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for an interlocutory appeal of the trial judge\u2019s rulings in favor of TR. <\/p>\n Recently here, I reported on the 10 amicus curiae briefs filed in support of ROSS<\/a>, all arguing that the now-defunct AI legal research startup did not violate copyright law.\u00a0<\/p>\n Now, nine amicus briefs have been filed in support of TR. Those filing briefs range from major movie studios such as Disney and Paramount, to news media and copyright organizations, to individual copyright law professors, and even to TR\u2019s principal competitor LexisNexis.<\/p>\n (Note: All of my stories covering this case back to 2020 can be found here<\/a>.)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n The primary argument of all nine briefs is that Westlaw\u2019s headnotes are sufficiently original to qualify for copyright and that ROSS\u2019s unauthorized copying of them to build its AI legal research platform was not fair use.<\/p>\n This matter is now before the 3rd Circuit after the trial judge in the case, U.S. Circuit Judge Stephanos Bibas, sitting by designation in the U.S. District Court in Delaware,\u00a0issued partial summary judgment<\/a> last February in favor of TR on two key issues of copyright law.<\/p>\n At ROSS\u2019s request, he then\u00a0postponed the scheduled trial<\/a>\u00a0to allow ROSS to file an interlocutory appeal on those two issues.<\/p>\n The two issues Judge Bibas certified for appeal to the 3rd Circuit are:<\/p>\n Below are quick summaries of the amicus briefs, including a \u201cnugget\u201d quote, with links to the full text of each. I published the summaries of the briefs in favor of ROSS here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Note: I used ChatGPT to help me extract information from the briefs and create these summaries.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Download full text<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n Amici Identities<\/strong><\/p>\n Background<\/strong><\/p>\n These are private standards-development organizations (SDOs) that create technical codes and standards used across industry and often incorporated by reference into law. They emphasize that standards are costly to develop and funded largely through copyright-based licensing and sales of standards documents.<\/p>\n Supports<\/strong><\/p>\n Thomson Reuters.<\/p>\n Principal Arguments<\/strong><\/p>\n Counsel for Amicus<\/strong><\/p>\n Nugget Quote<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cLike standards authored by standards development organizations, Thomson Reuters\u2019 headnotes are creative, privately-authored works that advance public knowledge by translating complex material into structured, comprehensible guidance. These are precisely the kinds of expressive works that copyright protects.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Download full text.<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n Amici Identities<\/strong><\/p>\n Fifteen copyright and IP professors:<\/p>\n Background<\/strong><\/p>\n These are academic copyright scholars from law schools across the U.S. who study fair use, AI, and markets for expressive works.<\/p>\n Supports<\/strong><\/p>\n Thomson Reuters.<\/p>\n Principal Arguments<\/strong><\/p>\n Counsel for Amicus<\/strong><\/p>\n Nugget Quote<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cIt makes no difference that the headnotes express facts (albeit creatively); if all defendants could excuse their unauthorized copying by claiming to be seeking the facts contained therein, the exception would swallow copyright law whole. Nor, as Ross and its amici argue, is its use fair because it engaged only in \u2018intermediate copying,\u2019 creating no infringing output. The law is clear that copyright holders have the right to control reproduction, irrespective of whether the separate rights to distribute the work or create derivative works therefrom are infringed.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Download full text.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n Amicus Identity<\/strong><\/p>\n News\/Media Alliance (N\/MA) \u2013 a nonprofit trade group representing over 2,200 news and magazine publishers in the U.S.<\/p>\n Background<\/strong><\/p>\n N\/MA represents newspapers, digital-only outlets, and magazines ranging from local papers to national brands. Its members depend on copyright to fund journalism, especially as they negotiate AI and RAG (retrieval-augmented generation) licensing deals.<\/p>\n Supports<\/strong><\/p>\n Thomson Reuters.<\/p>\n Principal Arguments<\/strong><\/p>\n Counsel for Amicus<\/strong><\/p>\n Nugget Quote<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cNews companies rely on revenue from the stories they publish to pay the journalists who research and write those stories. When news reporting or other copyrighted material is taken and used without permission to develop a competing product \u2014 as Ross Intelligence Inc. did here \u2014 it undermines the ability of publishers to create and disseminate original content, including quality online journalism.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Download full text.<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n Amicus Identity<\/strong><\/p>\n Copyright Alliance is a nonprofit public-interest organization representing over two million individual creators and 15,000 organizations across music, publishing, visual art, film, software, etc.<\/p>\n Background<\/strong><\/p>\n The Alliance advocates for strong copyright protections and enforcement as essential to the livelihoods of creative professionals and to the U.S. copyright industries\u2019 contribution to the economy.<\/p>\n Supports<\/strong><\/p>\n Thomson Reuters.<\/p>\n Principal Arguments<\/strong><\/p>\n Counsel for Amicus<\/strong><\/p>\n Nugget Quote<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cAppellant\u2019s activity threatens wide swaths of creative industries and the livelihoods of authors and book publishers, as well as many other types of creative professionals. Permitting Appellant to take and reproduce Appellees\u2019 copyrighted headnotes without authorization for purposes of a competing product would undermine existing licensing markets and strip creators and rightsholders of their statutory rights to control and commercialize their copyrighted works.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Download full text.<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n Amici Identities<\/strong><\/p>\n Background<\/strong><\/p>\n These are five of the largest U.S. film\/television studios, each owning extensive libraries of copyrighted works and heavily invested in both content creation and new technologies. They frequently litigate and rely on fair use but worry about over-expansion of the doctrine in the AI context.<\/p>\n Supports<\/strong><\/p>\n Thomson Reuters.<\/p>\n Principal Arguments<\/strong><\/p>\n Counsel for Amicus<\/strong><\/p>\n Nugget Quote<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201c[W]hile Defendant seeks shelter behind the fact that its competing product involves purportedly novel machine-learning technology, that does not alter the copyright principles in play. There is no \u2018novel technology\u2019 exception to copyright law, and there is no thumb on the fair-use scale for commercially motivated copying just because the competing product in some sense incorporates AI.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Download full text.<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n Amicus Identity<\/strong><\/p>\n The Center for Art Law is a Brooklyn-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit focused on the intersection of visual art, cultural heritage and law.<\/p>\n Background<\/strong><\/p>\n Founded in 2009, the Center researches and educates on artists\u2019 rights, AI and copyright, restitution, and cultural property. It represents visual artists\u2019 interests in emerging AI copyright issues.<\/p>\n Supports<\/strong><\/p>\n Thomson Reuters.<\/p>\n Principal Arguments<\/strong><\/p>\n Counsel for Amicus<\/strong><\/p>\n Nugget Quote<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201c[T]he unauthorized use of copyrighted visual works in AI systems poses significant and concrete harm to artists. Illustrators, photographers, painters, and designers face infringement of their creative autonomy, threats to licensing and market opportunities, and loss of the value of their labor and distinctive styles when their works are incorporated into AI datasets without consent, attribution, or compensation.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n
\n1. American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and Six Standards Organizations<\/h3>\n
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\n2. Copyright & IP Law Professors<\/h3>\n
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\n3. News\/Media Alliance (N\/MA)<\/h3>\n
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\n4. Copyright Alliance<\/h3>\n
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\n5. Major Film Studios (Disney, Paramount, Sony, Universal, Warner Bros.)<\/h3>\n
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\n6. Center for Art Law<\/h3>\n
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\n7. AI Coalition for Data Integrity (AICDI)<\/h3>\n