In May 2020, Media and technology group Thomson Reuters has sued a small legal AI startup called Ross Intelligence, alleging that it violated US copyright law by copying material from Westlaw, the research platform Thomson Reuters legal. As the pandemic raged, the lawsuit was barely registered outside the small world of nerds obsessed with copyright rules. But it's now clear that the lawsuit—filed more than two years before the AI boom began—is the first strike in a The war is much bigger between content publishers and artificial intelligence companies is currently playing out in courts across the country. The results could make, disrupt, or reshape the information ecosystem and the entire AI industry—and in doing so, impact everyone on the Internet.
Over the past two years, dozens of other copyright lawsuits against AI companies have been filed at a fast pace. Plaintiffs include individual authors such as Sarah Silverman and Ta Nehisi-Coates, visual artists, media companies such as The New York Times and giant in the music industry like Universal Music Group. Many of these rights holders are alleging that AI companies have used their work to train powerful and highly profitable AI models in a manner that amounts to theft. AI companies frequently protect themselves by relying on so-called “Fair use” doctrineargues that building AI tools should be considered a situation in which it is legal to use copyrighted material without obtaining consent or paying compensation to the rights holder. (Widely accepted examples of fair use include parody, news reporting, and academic research.) Nearly every major innovative AI company has been embroiled in legal battles. management, including OpenAI, Meta, Microsoft, Google, Anthropic and Nvidia.
WIRED is closely monitoring the developments in each of these lawsuits. We've created visualizations to help you track and contextualize which companies and rights holders are involved, where the cases were filed, what they allege, and everything else you need know.
That first case, Thomson Reuters v. Ross Intelligencestill finding its way through the court system. A trial originally scheduled for earlier this year has been delayed indefinitely, and although the costs of litigation have put Ross on hold, it remains unclear when it will end. Other cases, like the closely watched lawsuit filed by The New York Times against OpenAI and Microsoft, are currently being processed. controversial discovery phasewhere both sides are arguing about what information they need to hand over.