In a landmark ruling, U.S. Circuit Judge Stephanos Bibas of the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware has rejected Ross Intelligence’s fair use defense in its copyright dispute with Thomson Reuters. The case, Thomson Reuters Enterprise Centre GmbH v. Ross Intelligence Inc., No. 20-613 (D. Del. 2025), marks the first judicial decision in the United States addressing the fair use doctrine in the context of artificial intelligence training.
Ross Intelligence, a now-defunct legal research company, was accused of using Thomson Reuters’ copyrighted Westlaw headnotes to train its AI-based legal research platform. The headnotes, which summarize legal principles from judicial opinions, are created by Westlaw’s attorney-editors and serve as a key feature of the platform. Ross had previously attempted to license the headnotes but, upon being denied, allegedly resorted to scraping Westlaw’s content to develop its AI model.
Judge Bibas’ ruling largely granted summary judgment in favor of Thomson Reuters, concluding that Ross’ use of the copyrighted material did not qualify as fair use under the four-factor analysis established by 17 U.S.C. § 107..
American police departments near the United States-Mexico border are paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for an unproven and secretive technology that uses AI-generated online personas designed to interact with and collect intelligence on “college protesters,” “radicalized” political activists, and suspected drug and human traffickers, according to internal documents, contracts, and communications that 404 Media obtained via public records requests.
Massive Blue, the New York–based company that is selling police departments this technology, calls its product Overwatch, which it markets as an “AI-powered force multiplier for public safety” that “deploys lifelike virtual agents, which infiltrate and engage criminal networks across various channels.” According to a presentation obtained by 404 Media, Massive Blue is offering cops these virtual personas that can be deployed across the internet with the express purpose of interacting with suspects over text messages and social media.
Massive Blue lists “border security,” “school safety,” and stopping “human trafficking” among Overwatch’s use cases. The technology—which as of last summer had not led to any known arrests—demonstrates the types of social media monitoring and undercover tools private companies are pitching to police and border agents. Concerns about tools like Massive Blue have taken on new urgency considering that the Trump administration has revoked the visas of hundreds of students, many of whom have protested against Israel’s war in Gaza...
[T]he Court identified nearly thirty defective citations in the Opposition. These defects include but are not limited to misquotes of cited cases; misrepresentations of principles of law associated with cited cases, including discussions of legal principles that simply do not appear within such decisions; misstatements regarding whether case law originated from a binding authority such as the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit; misattributions of case law to this District; and most egregiously, citation of cases that do not exist.
Despite having every opportunity to do so, Mr. Kachouroff declined to explain to the Court how the Opposition became replete with such fundamental errors.
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Time and time again, when Mr. Kachouroff was asked for an explanation of why citations to legal authorities were inaccurate, he declined to offer any explanation, or suggested that it was a "draft pleading."
Not until this Court asked Mr. Kachouroff directly whether the Opposition was the product of generative artificial intelligence did Mr. Kachouroff admit that he did, in fact, use generative artificial intelligence. After further questioning, Mr. Kachouroff admitted that he failed to cite check the authority in the Opposition after such use before filing it with the Court—despite understanding his obligations under Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Even then, Mr. Kachouroff represented that he personally outlined and wrote a draft of a brief before utilizing generative artificial intelligence. Given the pervasiveness of the errors in the legal authority provided to it, this Court treats this representation with skepticism….
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