Are there any actual details on this? I get that this is a blog post, but the only links I see on the page are to other blog posts. It leaves a lot of questions.
Is this blog post a legally enforceable contract? Is Microsoft specifically indemnifying all users of Copilot against claims of copyright infringement that arise from use of Copilot?
The blog post says that "there are important conditions to this program", and it lists a few, but are those conditions exhaustive, or are there more that the blog post doesn't cover? For example, is it only in specific countries, or does it apply to every legal system worldwide?
What guarantees do users have that Microsoft won't discontinue this program? If Microsoft gets kicked in the teeth repeatedly by courts ruling against them, and they realize that even they can't afford to pay out every time Copilot license-launders large chunks of copyrighted code, what means to users have to keep Microsoft to its promises?
This is why (so far) it's just PR, not actual legal protection. Brad Smith, being an attorney understands this. Why would he otherwise risk Microsoft (a $2.5T company) with an uncapped liability guarantee?
I think it's likely MS would want to step in and use their lawyers anyway since the result could be hugely impactful for the future of LLMs which they are heavily invested in.
IANAL, but far as I understand, estoppel is purely a defense when being sued by whomever made the promise.
So it helps if MS sues you when you distribute copilot-generated code that infringes on MS copyrights, but if a third party sues you, you can't claim estoppel to compel MS to help you. You would need a contractual guarantee.
I am a lawyer and tried to find this new language but none of the legal documents I looked at appear to be updated to reflect any of this. Microsoft has a lot of different docs and it's a little confusing but the ones for Copilot are straightforward and none of those have changed any indemnity-related provisions since the spring.
Is this blog post a legally enforceable contract? Is Microsoft specifically indemnifying all users of Copilot against claims of copyright infringement that arise from use of Copilot?
The blog post says that "there are important conditions to this program", and it lists a few, but are those conditions exhaustive, or are there more that the blog post doesn't cover? For example, is it only in specific countries, or does it apply to every legal system worldwide?
What guarantees do users have that Microsoft won't discontinue this program? If Microsoft gets kicked in the teeth repeatedly by courts ruling against them, and they realize that even they can't afford to pay out every time Copilot license-launders large chunks of copyrighted code, what means to users have to keep Microsoft to its promises?