"Taiwan's First Data Crawling Sentencing" Legal Edition Google "Seven Laws Lawsnote" Abused Competitor's Legal Source Information, 2 Founders Imprisoned + 100 Million Fine

Under the wave of AI and big data, the line between data capture and copyright protection is gradually blurred. The New Taipei District Court recently ruled on a database infringement dispute between Legal Source Information and Lawsnote's Seven Laws. (Synopsis: It's illegal to download someone else's creation and then AI wash the picture!) China's first AI copyright infringement criminal case sentenced to prison + fine) (Background supplement: The era of iris verification is coming? Reddit will use World ID to fight AI fake accounts, world coin $WLD skyrocketing) Under the wave of AI and big data, automatically scraping data through crawlers has become a daily online routine for many enterprises, but a recent case has caused discussion. In June, the New Taipei District Court sentenced the two co-founders of Lawsnote to four and two years in prison, respectively, and the company and the founders must jointly pay NT$100 million in compensation. This verdict made this startup, once hailed by the media as the "legal version of Google", from a high-profile potential stock, to an instant warning case in the technology circle. From Google in Law to Legal Alarm Bells Founded in 2016, Lawsnote has quickly accumulated a large number of lawyers and corporate clients with its instant search of legal documents. However, since 2021, Legal Source has accused Lawsnote of using a crawler to massively copy the content of its "Legal Source Legal Network" database and use this content for its fee-based services. After the investigation unit conducted a search, it was determined that Lawsnote had reproduced and listed the selective, organized, and edited materials of the legal source information, and its actions had a profit purpose, which had infringed the "editorial copyright" of the legal source information. As a result, the New Taipei District Court issued a guilty verdict in June, which also became the first case in Taiwan's legal technology field to face both criminal and civil sanctions for data scraping. According to the Liberty Times, the judge specifically emphasized in his verdict that "public information does not equal free use." The core of the copyright dispute and the impact of the judgment In this case, Lawsnote argued that they only treated the provisions with simple words and symbols, which did not constitute infringement; However, the source information claims that its database has been manually selected and typeset and is a creative editorial work. The court finally adopted the claim of legal source information, and cited the right of reproduction in the Copyright Law and the crime of obtaining computer electromagnetic records without cause in the Criminal Law, finding that the defendant's actions were "profit-making motives, large in scale and serious in circumstances". In his reasoning, the judge stated: "Public information does not equal free use; Any editorial or creative process, even if originating from the public sector, is still protected by copyright." The reasons for this judgment are bound to become an important reference for the legal information service industry in the use of materials and copyright issues in the future. Impact and risks on the AI and big data industry In recent years, many data-driven business models have relied heavily on the capture of online data. Lawsnote's decision highlights an important fact: Just being open access doesn't mean having immunity. In particular, current generative AI models require a large amount of data for training, and recently face the challenge of the legitimacy of data sources. Similar cases have emerged internationally, such as Reddit suing Anthropic for unauthorized collection of posts on its platform. According to Science and Technology News, the legitimacy of training data sources has become the biggest concern for the future development of the AI industry. To solve this problem, Creative Commons is recently promoting a framework called "CC signals" that attempts to build consensus between the sharing of open data and copyright protection, and provide developers with a set of identifiable licensing identifiers. The case of Lawsnote also provides an important list of risks for all startups, reminding them to exercise extreme caution when crawling and using data: Before crawling data, it's important to confirm that the material is a creative choice or edit. If your use of your data is for profit-making purposes, it is recommended to obtain written authorization from the relevant party or consider purchasing a legitimate API. Establish an internal compliance process, including rigorous verification of sources, record reproduction processes, and clear copyright notices. When encountering a legal grey area, you should actively seek professional legal advice, rather than relying solely on technical means to avoid risks. As the demand for large amounts of high-quality training data for AI models continues to skyrocket, the importance of data ethics and compliance is bound to rise to the level of the core strategy of the enterprise. In the future, industry, government and academia need to work together to improve data authorization standards and open mechanisms to ensure that scientific and technological innovation can go faster and more stable. Related Stories Investment Boom or Bubble? What else is the AI + Web3 track worth? Apple's AI switches to "automated design chips", M6, A20 chips are expected to strengthen energy efficiency How does AI change human reading habits? Will the original text eventually disappear? "Taiwan's First Data Crawler Sentencing" Legal Edition Google "Seven Laws Lawsnote" abused the method source information, 2 founders jailed + fined 100 million yuan" This article was first published in BlockTempo "Dynamic Trend - The Most Influential Blockchain News Media".