The head of the division artificial intelligence of Microsoft, Mustafa Suleymanshowed no knowledge of the Copyright. Or at least have a public discourse that is on the side of theft for AI.
In a recent conversation, Suleyman assured that when something is published on the Internet, it becomes “freeware” so that anyone can copy, reinvent and use.
His words came after he was asked about the “AI companies have effectively stolen the world’s intellectual property.”
“I think that with respect to the content that is already on the open web, the social contract of that content since the 90s It has been that it is Fair use. Anyone can copy it, recreate it, reproduce it. That’s been “freeware”if you will, that has been the understanding,” said the Microsoft executive.
Consider that freeware is a term that refers to software that is distributed at no cost, available for use, but that “It maintains restrictions on its copyright, so it cannot be modified or sold or used freely as occurs with free software.”.
On the other hand, the fair use that Suleyman points to refers to a common law judicial criterion that allows limited use of protected material without requiring permission from the owner of said rights. For example, only playing a few short seconds for academic or informative use, which is used by multiple content creators on platforms such as YouTube.
Obviously, AI models do not fall into this area, as they generate a multi-million dollar business that to date has evaded the payment of copyright.
Consider that multiple companies are being sued for using protected material to train artificial intelligence models. The above obviously includes Microsoft.
The controversy has reached such a point that record labels have sued platforms that use their music to train AI models that replicate musical styles.
