CanLII v. Caseway AI Legal Ltd.
CanLII alleged that Caseway AI systematically scraped over 120 GB and 3.5 million records from its legal database in breach of terms of use and copyright, using the data to train an AI legal assistant chatbot. Caseway disputed the terms-of-use claim, arguing the underlying court documents are public records.
| Court | Supreme Court of British Columbia |
|---|---|
| Jurisdiction | British Columbia |
| Filed | |
| Parties | Plaintiff / Applicant: Canadian Legal Information Institute (CanLII) Defendant / Respondent: Caseway AI Legal Ltd. |
AI context
AI system: Caseway AI (AI-powered legal research chatbot)
Caseway allegedly used CanLII's curated legal database as training data for its AI legal assistant without authorization.
Significance
First Canadian copyright case directly addressing AI training data scraping from a legal database. Tests whether curated legal databases have copyright protection distinct from the underlying public court documents.