JOINSTM supports Copyright Alliance brief in key U.S. copyright case
STM has endorsed an amicus curiae brief filed by the Copyright Alliance in the ongoing U.S. appeals case Thomson Reuters v. ROSS Intelligence. The case raises important questions about copyright protection for editorial content — including material similar in nature and function to content produced by STM’s members. The case also presents a set of facts under which the lower court rightly found ROSS’s use of Thomson Reuters’ product was not transformative, that the unpermissioned use resulted in a tool that directly competed with Thomson Reuters, and which did not constitute fair use.
The case centres on Westlaw’s “headnotes” — concise editorial summaries created by legal experts to help users navigate case law. ROSS Intelligence, a now-defunct startup, used thousands of these headnotes to train a competing AI-driven legal research tool, without permission. A lower court ruled that the headnotes are protected by copyright and that ROSS’s copying did not qualify as fair use. ROSS is appealing the decision.
The Copyright Alliance brief, which incorporates input from STM, argues that Westlaw’s headnotes meet the originality threshold for copyright (not unlike scholarly abstracts, summaries or editorial metadata crafted by STM publishers). It also emphasizes that allowing unlicensed reuse of this kind could undermine the legitimate licensing market for high-quality, curated content — especially when used to train generative AI tools.
STM supports the brief’s position that copyright protects not just personality-laden works, but also the intellectual expressive works that involve crafting structured, discoverable, and context-rich editorial material. As in STM members’ own publishing workflows, such content is created with skill, creativity, and judgment — and should not be freely copied or repurposed without regard for copyright protections or the value of the underlying work.
STM joins the Copyright Alliance and other amici in encouraging the court to uphold the principle that copyright supports innovation — including in the development of responsible, licensed AI.