Appeals court upholds Thomson Reuters' AI-training copyright win over ROSS

What happened

A US appeals court upheld Thomson Reuters' copyright win against ROSS Intelligence, rejecting the legal-research company's fair-use defense over its use of Westlaw material to train an AI search engine, according to Reuters.

Confirmed

Global impact / market context

If AI companies cannot freely use copyrighted material to train models, they may need licenses, raising costs and slowing product development. This can reduce revenue and cash available for smaller AI firms, while owners of content could gain paid licensing deals.

Analyst inference

Investors may treat this ruling as making legal risk clearer for AI companies using third-party content. Companies relying on scraped data could face higher costs and weaker profit per sale, while content owners and licensed data providers may gain bargaining power.

Analyst inference

What to watch

1. Watch whether ROSS Intelligence appeals further, because a final ruling would confirm the copyright limits for AI training using Westlaw material. Confirmed
2. Watch whether AI companies begin signing content licensing deals, which would shift training costs from free use toward ongoing payments to data owners. Proposed
3. Watch whether investors reduce exposure to AI firms dependent on unlicensed data, as higher legal and licensing costs could shrink cash available and delay products. Analyst inference

Evidence

• cryptopolitan.com