Microsoft will legally protect users who use its artificial intelligence tools against a claim for intellectual property violation. the tech giant announced Copilot’s Copyright Pledgea program that guarantees its clients that they can use the services of generative AI without worrying about possible legal problems.
The commitment covers the GitHub Copilot clients, the tool that creates code with generative AI, as well as Microsoft 365 Copilot, which adds an intelligent assistant to the Office suite. In the event of a lawsuit over the generated material, the company will assume the legal responsibility.
“If a third party sues a commercial customer for copyright infringement for their use of Microsoft Copilots, or the output they generate, we will defend the client and pay the amount of any adverse judgment or settlement resulting from the lawsuit,” said Brad Smith, president of Microsoft. The only requirement is that the customer has used the security barriers and content filters built into the products by default.
The new move is part of an overall commitment to customers of its artificial intelligence services. A few weeks ago, Microsoft detailed a series of steps to respond to concerns about AIboth at the development and regulation level.
“When customers ask if they can use Microsoft’s Copilot services and the results they generate without worrying about copyright claims, we give them a simple answer: yes, they can,” said Smith. “And if they are challenged on copyright grounds, we will take responsibility for the possible legal risks involved.”
Why Microsoft is so sure its products don’t infringe copyrights
The lawsuits against AI for intellectual property violation they are gaining strength. After the initial accusations against Midjourney and Stable Difussion, the discussion has escalated involving larger companies. Getty Images accused Stability AI (creators of Stable Diffusion) of copy more than 12 million images to train your artificial intelligence model. Pearson followed suit, announcing in May that he will prosecute those who use his work without permission.
Actress Sarah Silverman joined two writers to sue Open AI for illegally using his books in the development of ChatGPT. Those directed by Sam Altman they have stolen more than 300,000 million words from the internet —including books, publications, and copyrighted material—to train GPT-4.
This trend could scare Copilot users, especially those who pay to use the technology. Given this, Microsoft promised that it will be them and not their clients who will be responsible for the content generated by an AI. The company reveals that this philosophy is not new, since previously applied it in patent lawsuits.
Microsoft believes that it has built significant filters and security barriers to reduce the likelihood that its AI will generate content that infringes on intellectual property. Nevertheless, there are some conditions for protection before a possible demand. The technology will leave out those who use Copilot to generate protected material intentionally.
Currently, Microsoft charges a monthly fee to users of its artificial intelligence. Copilot is available now on GitHub and in Microsoft 365 business plans. In the coming months, AI will debut in Windows 11 to become the intelligent assistant Cortana never was.