Canadian law database CanLII sues Caseway AI over content scraping
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Occurred: November 2024
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Caseway AI, a Canada-based legal information start-up, was sued by the Canadian Legal Information Institute (CanLII) for copyright infringement and violations of its terms of service.ย
What happened
What happened
Filed in the British Columbia Supreme Court, the lawsuit 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.ย
CanLII asserts that the bulk downloading constitutes a breach of its terms of use and infringes on its copyright, as the organization invests considerable resources into enhancing and curating its legal content for public access.ย
Following a cease-and-desist letter that Caseway allegedly ignored, CanLII is seeking an injunction to prevent further use of its data and is pursuing monetary damages for the alleged infringement.
Why it happened
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.ย
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.
What it means
What it means
The lawsuit is seen to set a potential precedent for how AI companies interact with legal databases and proprietary data practices in Canada.ย
As the legal landscape evolves with the rise of AI technologies, the case may influence future regulation concerning data scraping and copyright protections within the legal field and beyond.
The outcome could also affect how legal information is accessed and used by startups aiming to enhance public access to justice.
System ๐ค
System ๐ค
Caseway AI ๐
Operator:ย
Developer: Clearway Management Ltd
Country: Canada
Sector: Business/professional services
Purpose: Provide legal information
Technology: Chatbot; Generative AI; Machine learning
Issue: Copyright; Ethics/values
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Type: Incident
Published: November 2024
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