Generative AI Training Case Flags Competition As Major Factor

Companies must be mindful of the ultimate purpose of new artificial intelligence tools to avoid running into copyright infringement issues during the training process. If widely adopted, the Thomson Reuters v. Ross Intelligence decision suggests "intermediate copying" cases are unlikely to provide a strong defense when the final output of a tool mirrors the products it was trained on. Accordingly, the key question is likely to what extent the AI system is competing with the underlying copyrighted work. The further away the system is, the more likely it is to be protected under the fair-use doctrine.

The Thomson Reuters case is a novel application of the "fair use" defense of copyright law to an AI system. The fair-use doctrine allows limited use of copyrighted materials without the copyright owner's permission, based on a series of factors that balance the rights of copyright holders with the public interest. While there are several copyright cases involving AI