# Court Rules AI Training Data Not Fair Use

> US appeals court finds AI training on copyrighted material violates copyright law.
- Title: Court Rules AI Training Data Not Fair Use · Futurism
- Summary: US appeals court finds AI training on copyrighted material violates copyright law. A US appeals court ruled that Ross Intelligence’s use of Thomson Reuters’…
- Keywords: copyright, thomson reuters, ross intelligence, fair use, third circuit court, legal research, science, technology, Court, Rules, Training, Data
- Source: Futurism — https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/court-finds-copyrighted-material-training-data-fair-use
- Author: Victor Tangermann
- Published: 2026-10-06T14:58:51+00:00
- Read time: 1 min
- Topics: us, copyright, ai, thomson reuters, ross intelligence, fair use, third circuit court, legal research, science, technology
## Fair Use Definition
The US Copyright Act allows copyrighted materials for criticism, journalism, and research.
## AI Industry's Legal Defense
AI companies use fair use to defend against lawsuits over training data from copyrighted materials.
## Ross Intelligence Case
Ross Intelligence trained its legal search engine on Thomson Reuters’ Westlaw data, violating copyright law.
## Ross Shutdown
Ross shut down in 2021 after financial strain from the lawsuit.
## Court Ruling Details
The court found Ross copied Thomson Reuters’ headnotes verbatim, not transformative use.
## AI Industry Reaction
Tech industry group says the ruling confirms highly transformative AI training is likely fair use.

> implicitly confirms that highly transformative gen AI training to produce a hugely multi-purpose model with substantial public benefit is likely fair use!
## Key takeaway

A US appeals court ruled that Ross Intelligence’s use of Thomson Reuters’ legal data for AI training violated copyright law, marking a key legal challenge for AI companies.