Microsoft Copilot customers concerned about copyright issues received some good news with the company announcing its Copilot Copyright Commitment.

Copyright concerns are one of the most contentious issues plaguing the generative AI market, with advocates and critics disagreeing on what constitutes fair game for companies to use to train their AI models. Microsoft is hoping to ease some of those concerns with its Copilot Copyright Commitment.

Microsoft’s AI-powered Copilots are changing the way we work, making customers more efficient while unlocking new levels of creativity. While these transformative tools open doors to new possibilities, they are also raising new questions. Some customers are concerned about the risk of IP infringement claims if they use the output produced by generative AI. This is understandable, given recent public inquiries by authors and artists regarding how their own work is being used in conjunction with AI models and services.

To address this customer concern, Microsoft is announcing our new Copilot Copyright Commitment. As customers ask whether they can use Microsoft’s Copilot services and the output they generate without worrying about copyright claims, we are providing a straightforward answer: yes, you can, and if you are challenged on copyright grounds, we will assume responsibility for the potential legal risks involved.

This new commitment extends our existing intellectual property indemnity support to commercial Copilot services and builds on our previous AI Customer Commitments. Specifically, 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.

Microsoft’s willingness to assume legal liability for any copyright issues is a tremendous vote of confidence and will likely go a long way toward convincing those on the fence to adopt Copilot.