Microsoft Says It Will Protect Customers from AI Copyright Lawsuits

Microsoft 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. From a report: 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, into many of its biggest products, including Office and Windows, potentially putting customers in legal jeopardy.

It's a trap!

[CEC-P]

I'm not a lawyer but...to sign up for a Microsoft account of any kind, you agree to arbitration and waive your ability to sue them. So if they violated their agreement to not let people sue you, you couldn't sue them for the damages and arbitration is kinda bullshit when you're looking for monetary damages.

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[SoftwareArtist]

"Buyers of its artificial intelligence products" probably means enterprise customers. Yes, they probably really mean it. Protections like this are common in contracts between companies. Don't expect it to apply to you just because you sign up for a free account. It only applies to their customers (paying businesses). You're a product, not a customer.

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[bloodhawk]

What has that got to do with enterprises signing up for AI services? this has nothing to do with home users.

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[CEC-P]

I run a very, very large MS enterprise account at my company. The terms are complete BS and their support is garbage. There's no difference. Nobody is "big enough" for Microsoft to give them special terms that open them up for a lawsuit.

Just marketing fluff

[blitzd]

Notihng but marketing fluff. As soon as a case goes too far, they'll find a way out through some obscure terms of service.

It doesn't matter

[phantomfive]

If you lose a copyright suit, you still have to rewrite your stuff, or license it if you can.

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[layabout]

I had a conversation with my lawyer about this, and he said that if something is functional, you can't copyright it. A typical example is data compilation like a phone book or possibly training sets for machine learning. he also expressed the opinion that copyright should not apply to software because of the functionality rule

from the copyright office: Copyright law expressly excludes copyright protection for “any idea, procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discove

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[El_Muerte_TDS]

That explains why a lot of software is dysfunctional.

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[layabout]

in part. But software is also dysfunctional because too much code is pulled out of the developer's ass and then they try to polish the turd. the situation is not helped any by management shoving laxatives down the developer's throat to get more turds that can be polished or at least covered in resin to keep the stink down.

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[SoftwareArtist]

Your lawyer is welcome to his opinions about what the law ought to be, but if he presented this as legal advice, you need a new lawyer. Software has been copyrightable in most countries [wikipedia.org] for over 40 years. It's established both by court rulings and by laws. In the US, which I gather you're referring to, congress amended the copyright law in 1980 to be explicit that computer programs were copyrightable.

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[layabout]

it was not a legal advice but an opinion in the context of generative AI. He also expressed the opinion that the modifications you mentioned were poorly thought out and should not have happened. sorry I didn't make that clearer.

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[phantomfive]

he also expressed the opinion that copyright should not apply to software because of the functionality rule

That was true at one time, but congress modified the law to make software copyrightable. "creative" vs "functional" is still a major issue in software copyright lawsuits though, including in the Google vs Oracle lawsuit [zerobugsan...faster.net].

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[layabout]

if copyright gives the software creator exclusive license, then they should test against all software to make sure they're not violating somebody else's copyright.

Software does not have infinite variability. In the field, we've applied multiple constraints on what's a good software solution (design patterns, anti-patterns) we have incredibly rich and common libraries, and languages themselves constrain solutions. So the odds of creating something that's violating somebody else's copyright is much higher

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[The Cat]

In other words, your lawyer just invalidated Microsoft's entire business model.

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[layabout]

and this is bad how?

There are still people that believe Microsoft?

[gweihir]

Apparently. Obviously, "Microsoft says" is worth absolutely nothing.

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[postbigbang]

I can hear their legal team cracking their knuckles, but it's because they like overtime.

We make you accomplish in a crime.

[DutchDopey]

But do not worry, we will protect you.

The best

[JThundley]

This is going to be the best product that Microsoft has ever put out. If there's one thing they're experts at, it's not making software; it's avoiding legal consequences.