Microsoft told a court that its Copilot chatbot rarely reproduces full sentences or substantive chunks from news articles and books, presenting analyses of millions of chat logs as part of its defence against copyright claims by publishers and authors.
The company said it provided 8.2 million Copilot chat logs to an expert hired by news publishers and that those logs were specifically chosen “because they hit on keywords implicating use of News Plaintiffs’ websites, and therefore the most likely to contain News Plaintiffs’ works.” Microsoft said the resulting analysis found 59,545 conversations that contained at least 16 words in common with news content used to ground the AI model. An expert for the Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR) identified 51 instances of “substantial overlap” with CIR work in the dataset, Microsoft added.
Copilot chat log analysis and findings
In the separate authors’ suit, Microsoft said an expert review of the same 8.2 million conversations turned up only 24 responses that contained at least 30 matching words. Microsoft also said only 10 of the 212 books evaluated had any matches. The company argued those numbers support its position that using copyrighted content to train large language models should be treated as fair use, because the resulting systems serve “significantly different purposes” than the original works and occasional reproduction of passages “hardly undermines the transformative purpose of LLM training.”
The plaintiffs dispute Microsoft’s interpretation. “The documents and testimony uncovered during discovery lead to only one conclusion: Microsoft and OpenAI stole from The New York Times to make commercial products that substitute for its journalism, threaten its business, and undermine its industry,” the Times’ lead counsel Ian Crosby said in a statement. “We look forward to Microsoft and OpenAI being held accountable for their theft.” CIR and the Authors Guild did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The filings are part of consolidated legal proceedings brought by news publishers and book authors who say Microsoft and OpenAI built products on their works and now compete with them, in part by regurgitating copyrighted content. The news publishers’ and books authors’ claims were consolidated under one judge to streamline the process, despite objections from the plaintiffs.
Microsoft submitted its filing on Friday asking the judge to issue a summary judgment that would end the case at an early stage. The Trump administration also filed a statement of interest in the New York Times case this week, supporting OpenAI. If the judge sides with the publishers and authors, the legal battle will continue in court.
