Third Circuit rules AI training on copyrighted legal data is not fair use
The Third Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed a ruling against ROSS Intelligence, determining that using copyrighted legal summaries to train a competing AI product constitutes copyright infringement rather than fair use. The court found that Thomson Reuters’ Westlaw headnotes possess sufficient 'creative spark' to be protected, and that ROSS’s use was not transformative enough to justify the copying. This decision marks the first federal appellate ruling on fair use in AI training, though the full opinion remains under seal pending redaction reviews.