Every AI Copyright Lawsuit in the US, Viewed

In May 2020, Media and technology conglomerate Thomson Reuters sued a small legal AI startup called Ross Intelligence, alleging that it had violated U.S. copyright law by reproducing materials from Westlaw, Thomson Reuters’ legal research platform. As the pandemic raged, demand barely registered outside the small world of nerds obsessed with copyright regulations. But it is now clear that the case, filed more than two years before the generative AI boom began, was the first attack in a much larger war between content publishers and artificial intelligence companies now raging in the United States. courts across the country. The result could make, break or reshape the information ecosystem and the entire AI industry and, in doing so, impact almost everyone on the Internet.

In the past two years, dozens of other copyright lawsuits against artificial intelligence companies have been filed at a rapid pace. Plaintiffs include individual authors such as Sarah Silverman and Ta Nehisi-Coates, visual artists, media companies such as The New York Times, and music industry giants such as Universal Music Group. This wide variety of rights holders allege that AI companies have used their work to train what are often very lucrative and powerful AI models in a way that amounts to theft. AI companies often defend themselves based on what is known as the “fair use” doctrine, arguing that the creation of AI tools should be considered a situation in which it is legal to use copyrighted materials without obtaining the consent or pay compensation to rights holders. (Widely accepted examples of fair use include parody, news reporting, and academic research.) Nearly every major generative AI company has been dragged into this legal fight, including OpenAI, Meta, Microsoft, Google, Anthropic, and Nvidia.

WIRED is closely following how each of these lawsuits develops. We’ve created visualizations to help you track and contextualize which companies and rights holders are involved, where cases have been filed, what they allege, and everything you need to know.

That first case, Thomson Reuters v Ross Intelligenceis still working its way through the court system. A trial originally scheduled for earlier this year has been delayed indefinitely, and while the cost of the litigation has already put Ross out of business, it’s unclear when it will end. Other cases, such as the closely watched lawsuit filed by The New York Times against OpenAI and Microsoft, are currently in contentious discovery periods, during which both sides argue over what information they need to turn over.