What happened

Filed in the British Columbia Supreme Court, a lawsuit filed by the Canadian Legal Information Institute (CanLII) claims that Caseway AI, which generates responses to user prompts based solely on legal texts, unlawfully scraped approximately 3.5 million records from non-profit's CanLII's database without permission. 

CanLII asserts that the bulk downloading constitutes a breach of its terms of use and infringes on its copyright, as the organisation invests considerable resources into enhancing and curating its legal content for public access. 

Following a cease-and-desist letter that Caseway allegedly ignored, CanLII sought an injunction to prevent further use of its data and is pursuing monetary damages for the alleged infringement.

CanLII also alleged that Caseway was incorporated in bad faith, including to avoid detection and to move assets to a different jurisdiction. 

Why it happened

CanLII contends that Caseway's actions represent a systematic attempt to exploit its work for commercial gain. The non-profit maintains that the enhancements it applies to public court records, such as indexing, annotating, and correcting errors, qualify for copyright protection under Canadian law. 

By contrast, Caseway claims that it only uses public domain court documents and has not incorporated any of CanLII's enhancements into its services.

The dispute highlights ongoing tensions in the technology industry about data usage rights and the balance between innovation and copyright protection.