2023-09-08 04:14:57
Microsoft co-pilots, powered by AI, are changing the way we work, making customers more efficient while unlocking new levels of creativity. While these transformative tools open up new possibilities, they also raise new questions. Some customers are concerned about the risk of intellectual property infringement claims if they use the results produced by generative AI. This concern is understandable, given recent public requests from authors and artists regarding the use of their own works in conjunction with AI models and services.
To address this customer concern, Microsoft is announcing its new copyright commitment for Copilot. Customers ask us if they can use Microsoft’s Copilot services and the results they generate without worrying about copyright. We give them a direct answer: yes, you can, and if you are incriminated for copyright reasons, we will take responsibility for the potential legal risks involved.
This new commitment extends to Copilot’s commercial services the intellectual property indemnification guarantee that we already offer and builds on our previous commitments to AI customers. Specifically, if a third party sues a commercial customer for copyright infringement due to the use of Microsoft’s co-drivers or the results they generate, we will defend the customer and pay the amount of any resulting adverse judgment or settlement. of the trial, provided that the customer has used the safeguards and content filters that we have integrated into our products.
You will find more details below. First, let me explain why we offer this program:
We believe in supporting our customers when using our products. We charge our commercial customers for our Copilots, and if their use creates legal problems, we must make it our problem rather than our customers’. This philosophy is not new: for two decades we have been defending our customers against patent claims relating to our products, and we have steadily extended this coverage over time. Expanding our defense obligations to cover copyright claims against our Copilots is another step in that direction. , that it is incumbent to answer them. Even where copyright law is clear, generative AI raises new public policy questions and highlights multiple public goals. We believe the world needs AI to advance the dissemination of knowledge and help solve major societal problems. However, it is essential that authors retain control of their rights under copyright law and that they get a good return on their creations. We also need to ensure that the content needed to train and anchor AI models is not locked away in the hands of one or a few companies in a way that stifles competition and innovation. We are determined to make the sustained and difficult efforts that will be necessary to take creative and constructive steps to advance all of these goals. We have built strong safeguards into our Copilots to help enforce copyrights. We’ve incorporated filters and other technologies designed to reduce the likelihood of Copilots returning infringing content. These technologies build on and complement our digital security and privacy protection work, leveraging a wide range of safeguards such as classifiers, metaprompts, content filtering, monitoring operational and abuse detection, including those that may infringe third-party content. Our new Copilot Commitment requires customers to use these technologies, making everyone more respectful of copyrights.
More details on Copilot’s commitment to copyright
The Copilot Commitment extends Microsoft’s existing intellectual property indemnification coverage to copyright claims related to the use of our AI-powered Copilots, including the results they generate, by particular for the paid versions of the commercial services of Microsoft Copilot and Bing Chat Enterprise. This includes Microsoft 365 Copilot which brings generative AI to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and more, allowing a user to reason through their data or turn a document into a presentation. It also includes GitHub Copilot, which allows developers to spend less time coding per core, and more time creating entirely new and transformative results.
This program comes with important terms, as it is possible that our technology may be intentionally misused to generate harmful content. To guard against this, customers must use the content filters and other security systems built into the product and must not attempt to generate illegal content, in particular by not providing information to a Copilot service that the customer has not not the proper rights to use.
This new advantage in no way changes the position of Microsoft, which does not claim any intellectual property rights over the results of its Copilot services.
We’ve released more details about Copilot’s commitment to copyright for customers, and we look forward to having more conversations as Copilots become more widely available.
Our shared AI journey
Today’s announcement is a first step. Like all new technologies, AI raises legal issues that our industry will need to resolve with a wide range of stakeholders. This step represents a commitment to our customers that we take responsibility for the copyrights of our products, not them.
Microsoft is convinced of the benefits of AI, but, as with any powerful technology, we are aware of the challenges and risks associated with it, especially with regard to the protection of creative works. It is our responsibility to help manage these risks by listening to and working with other players in the technology sector, authors and artists and their representatives, government officials, the academic community and civil society. We look forward to building on these announcements to launch new initiatives that will help ensure that AI drives knowledge dissemination while protecting the rights and needs of creators.
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