In May 2020, a legal battle between Thomson Reuters and Ross Intelligence made headlines in the tech world. The media and technology conglomerate sued the small legal AI startup for copyright infringement, claiming that it had reproduced materials from Thomson Reuters’ legal research platform without permission. This lawsuit, which was filed before the rise of generative AI, was just the beginning of a larger war between content publishers and AI companies. Over the past two years, numerous other copyright lawsuits have been filed against AI companies, with plaintiffs including individual authors, media companies, and music-industry giants. These lawsuits have raised questions about the use of copyrighted materials in training AI models and have pitted the fair use doctrine against the rights of content creators. As these cases continue to unfold, the outcome could have a significant impact on the information ecosystem and the entire AI industry. WIRED is closely monitoring these lawsuits and has created visualizations to help track and understand the various parties involved. While some cases are still ongoing, it is clear that this legal battle between content publishers and AI companies is far from over.
