Microsoft Promises to Shield Clients from AI Copyright Disputes

In a bid to alleviate concerns among customers using its AI “Copilots” to create content derived from existing work, Microsoft Corp. has announced its commitment to protect buyers of its artificial intelligence products from copyright infringement lawsuits.

Microsoft Copilot’s copyright commitment protects customers as long as they have “used the guardrails and content filters we’ve built into our products,” Microsoft general counsel Hossein Nowbar said in a blog post Thursday. Microsoft also promised to pay any related fines or settlements and said it has taken steps to ensure that its Copilots respect copyright.

“We believe in standing behind our customers when they use our products,” Nowbar said. “We charge our commercial customers for our Copilots, and if using them causes legal problems, we should make it our problem and not our customers’ problem.”

Generative AI applications take existing content, such as art, articles, and programming code, and use it to create new material that can simplify or automate many tasks. Microsoft uses technology developed with partner OpenAI Inc. in many of its biggest products, including Office and Windows, potentially putting customers at legal risk.

Artists, writers and software developers are already suing or objecting to the use of their creations without their permission. In one complaint, attorney 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 have also filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft, alleging that they are stealing “vast amounts” of personal data to train AI models in a reckless pursuit of profit.

News organizations are mulling their own complaints, comedian Sarah Silverman has filed suit against OpenAI and Meta Platforms Inc., and artists are challenging AI image generators Stability AI and Midjourney in court in San Francisco, though a judge has expressed doubts about aspects of the case. .

Generative AI could raise new questions about the fair use of copyrighted material, a legal protection that allows content to be used in certain cases. The doctrine of fair use itself has been further complicated by a Supreme Court ruling in May for a photographer who accused Andy Warhol’s estate of misappropriating his works in creating 16 images of the late musician Prince.

This isn’t the first time Microsoft has introduced legal protection to keep customers loyal. In the 2000s, the company offered compensation to partners and downstream customers who use or resell its software as a bid to differentiate Microsoft from Linux and other open source software vendors. In 2017, Microsoft, then an open source software vendor itself, offered to protect customers of its Azure cloud products from legal claims.

In June, the company announced a program to help customers ensure that the AI programs they run on Microsoft platforms comply with global laws and regulations. Earlier this year, Adobe Inc. also offered legal protection against copyright infringement to subscribers of its AI tools.