Microsoft Says It Will Protect Customers from AI Copyright Lawsuits
Microsoft Corp. says it will defend buyers of its artificial intelligence products from copyright infringement lawsuits, an effort by the software giant to ease concerns customers might have about using its AI “Copilots” to generate content based on existing work.
The Microsoft Copilot Copyright Commitment will protect customers as long as they've “used the guardrails and content filters we have built into our products” Hossein Nowbar, General Counsel, Corporate Legal Affairs and Corporate Secretary at Microsoft, said in a blog post Thursday. Microsoft also pledged to pay related fines or settlements and said it has taken steps to ensure its Copilots respect copyright.
“We believe in standing behind our customers when they use our products,” Nowbar said. “We are charging our commercial customers for our Copilots, and if their use creates legal issues, we should make this our problem rather than our customers' problem.”
Generative AI applications scoop up existing content such as art, articles and programming code and use it to generate new material that can simplify or automate a range of tasks. Microsoft is baking the technology, developed with partner OpenAI Inc., into many of its biggest products, including Office and Windows, potentially putting customers in legal jeopardy.
Artists, writers and software developers are already filing lawsuits or raising objections about their creations being used without their consent. In one complaint, lawyer and computer programmer Matthew Butterick accused Microsoft's GitHub partner of allegedly violating open-source software development licenses. A group of anonymous individuals seeking class action status also has filed suit against OpenAI and Microsoft, claiming they're stealing
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