Microsoft will defend its AI Copilot users from copyright lawsuits

Copyright infringement by generative AI chatbots has been a subject of debate for quite some time. However, in a groundbreaking move, Microsoft has now announced that it will protect its AI Copilot users against any claims of intellectual property (IP) infringement through its new Copilot Copyright Commitment program.

As explained by Microsoft President Brad Smith, the program aims to provide commercial customers with a sense of security against potential copyright claims arising from AI-generated content. In essence, the company will “assume responsibility for the potential legal risks involved” if an entity challenges the user on copyright grounds.

Additionally, even in the event that a third party takes legal action against a commercial customer, alleging copyright infringement related to their use of Microsoft’s Copilot or the content it generates, the company pledges to defend the customer.

Furthermore, the fact that Microsoft has also committed to covering any adverse judgments or settlements stemming from the lawsuit, albeit if the consumer has adhered to the prescribed safety measures, suggests that the company is confident in its Copilot’s ability to generate copyright-free content. This confidence stems from Microsoft’s incorporation of new filters that are designed to reduce the likelihood of infringing content.

“These build on and complement our work to protect digital safety, security, and privacy, based on a broad range of guardrails such as classifiers, meta prompts, content filtering, and operational monitoring and abuse detection, including that which potentially infringes third-party content,” reads Microsoft’s blog post.

What services does the program apply to?

While the new Copilot Copyright Commitment represents a significant step forward in the AI industry, it is important to note that this program applies exclusively to commercial customers of various offerings, such as GitHub Copilot, Bing Chat Enterprise, Microsoft 365 Copilot, Power BI, Viva Sales, Dynamics 365, and more. Therefore, individual users generating content that infringes on a personal capacity will not enjoy the same benefits.