Copilot's Fair Use Defense Faces Scrutiny Amid Copyright Infringement Claims
Microsoft's AI chatbot Copilot has been at the center of a copyright infringement case brought by news publishers and authors. The company claims that its use of copyrighted materials to train artificial intelligence systems constitutes fair use, as it uses such content for a substantially different purpose than the original publications.
As part of the discovery process in the lawsuit, Microsoft provided an expert retained by news publishers with 8.2 million Copilot conversation logs. The records were selected using keywords related to the use of plaintiff news outlets' websites, so this sample was the most likely to contain their works.
According to Microsoft, only 59,545 records contained at least 16 words shared with news content on which the AI model was based, amounting to less than 1% of all 8.2 million records. An expert from the Center for Investigative Reporting identified 51 instances of a 'substantial match' with the organization's materials in the sample.
The company also reported that matches were found for only 10 of the 212 books assessed, and 24 Copilot responses containing at least 30 words matching the texts. Microsoft believes these results support its argument that fair use applies to its AI systems.