Microsoft to Protect Copilot Commercial Customers Against Copyright Lawsuits

Microsoft 365 Copilot hero approved

Key takeaways:

  • Microsoft is taking a proactive stance in defending commercial customers against copyright infringement lawsuits related to its AI-powered Copilot services.
  • Microsoft is offering protection and financial support for those who utilize the tool to generate content.
  • The Copilot Copyright Commitment covers Microsoft 365 Copilot, Bing Chat Enterprise, Windows Copilot, GitHub Copilot, Microsoft Security Copilot, and other products.

Microsoft has announced that it will defend customers of its AI-powered Copilot services from the daunting specter of copyright infringement lawsuits. This initiative, part of the company’s unwavering dedication to customer satisfaction, seeks to alleviate the concerns that have long loomed over the utilization of the Copilot tool for content generation.

The Microsoft Copilot Copyright Commitment promises to protect organizations and pay related fines or settlements. This policy applies to commercial customers who have used the built-in content filters and safety measures as well as the paid versions of the products.

“If a third party sues a commercial customer for copyright infringement for using Microsoft’s Copilots or the output they generate, we will defend the customer and pay the amount of any adverse judgments or settlements that result from the lawsuit, as long as the customer used the guardrails and content filters we have built into our products,” said Microsoft President Brad Smith and Chief Legal Officer Hossein Nowbar.

Microsoft also pledged to address the concerns of authors whose content is used to train machine learning models. “We believe the world needs AI to advance the spread of knowledge and help solve major societal challenges. Yet it is critical for authors to retain control of their rights under copyright law and earn a healthy return on their creations,” Smith and Nowbar explained.

Microsoft to Protect Copilot Commercial Customers Against Copyright Lawsuits

Microsoft’s Copilot Copyright Commitment only covers paid tools

The Copilot Copyright Commitment covers several paid tools available for commercial customers. These include Microsoft 365 Copilot, Bing Chat Enterprise, Windows Copilot, GitHub Copilot, Microsoft Security Copilot, Viva Sales Copilot, Dynamics 365 Copilot, Power BI Copilot, and Power Platform Copilot. However, Microsoft will not protect consumers who generate copyright-infringing content with Bing Chat and the free version of GitHub Copilot.

It’s important to note that Microsoft, OpenAI, and GitHub faced a class-action lawsuit back in November 2022. The complaint accused the companies of scraping licensed code to build and train the Copilot coding assistant available for GitHub customers.