--- title: "Microsoft CEO of AI Says It’s Fine to Steal Anything on the Open Web" description: "Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman has some thoughts about fair use — and according to him, just about anything online is fair for him to use!" date: "2024-07-01" modified: "2024-07-01" authors: - name: "Maggie Harrison Dupré" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/mharrison" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/microsoft-ceo-ai-open-web" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" tags: - "ai" - "microsoft ai" - "mustafa suleyman" - "the digest" --- # Microsoft CEO of AI Says It’s Fine to Steal Anything on the Open Web ![Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman has some thoughts about fair use — and according to him, just about anything online is fair for him to use!]() *\Image: Anna Moneymaker via Getty\* ## Freeware Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman has some *thoughts* about fair use: that pretty much anything online is fair for big tech to use, actually! During an [interview with *CNBC*'s Andrew Ross Sorkin last week](), Suleyman was asked whether AI companies "have effectively stolen the world's IP" in order to train their endlessly data-hungry AI models. It's a fair question; if you've published anything to the internet, or had any of your work or personal material digitized and posted somewhere, it's probably in an AI model. But while some institutions — take [*The New York Times*]()[ versus Microsoft and OpenAI]() — and individuals have argued that AI companies' practice of mass web-scraping without consent or compensation has gone well beyond what can be justified under fair use, Suleyman expressed a decidedly maximalist approach to the concept of Other People's Digital Stuff. "I think that with respect to content that's already on the open web, the social contract of that content since the '90s has been that it is fair use," Suleyman [told Sorkin](). "Anyone can copy it, recreate with it, reproduce with it. That has been 'freeware,' if you like, that’s been the understanding." Of course, [as *The Verge* points out](), the US grants copyright protections the moment that a work is created. And as for the AI chief's "social contract," it's certainly worth noting that, up until November 2022, most people posting online didn't imagine that their pictures and videos, musings, and general creative, intellectual, personal, or otherwise output would become AI training materials. According to Suleyman, though? It's all just "freeware." Intellectual property who? ## Diss Content Suleyman conceded that websites or publishers that actively block web crawlers from scraping their content exist in a "separate category." Still, he argued, it's all a "gray area." If a "website, or a publisher, or a news organization had explicitly said 'do not scrape or crawl me for any other reason than indexing me so that other people can find this content,'" Suleyman told Sorkin, "that's a gray area, and I think it's going to work its way through the courts." If a website is blocking someone from scraping what's already copyright-protected material, it's hard to see how without permission or consent would be ambiguous. But to that end, when taken in full, Suleyman's statements about copyrighted material are less legal arguments than they are ideological ones. Indeed, regardless of whether the law protects your work, many folks within the AI community have shown time and again that they believe they're [entitled to it]() nonetheless. And few things may underscore this attitude more than yet another comment Suleyman made in his conversation with Sorkin. "What are we, collectively, as an organism of humans," the AI executive pondered, "other than a knowledge and intellectual production engine?" **More on Suleyman:** [*Microsoft Executive Says AI Is a "New Kind of Digital Species"*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've reported extensively on the rise of AI as a cultural and business force shaping the media industry, and more broadly how those dynamics are changing how we all consume and share information and relate to one another. I'm also fascinated by public health policy and ethics, the role of emerging tech in politics and governance — and the powerful people and forces at those intersections — climate change, and the environment. My investigation on Sports Illustrated's use of AI-generated authors with fictional biographies won a 2024 Mirror Award for "Best Story on Media Coverage of Artificial Intelligence in Journalism and the Media" from Syracuse University's SI Newhouse School, I contributed to Niemen Lab's 2025 Predictions for Journalism series, and I've discussed my work for Futurism during appearances on NPR, CNN, the BBC, the CBC, and more. I grew up in rural Pennsylvania and attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where I played Division I field hockey for the Minutewomen as a midfielder. Since then, I've lived in New Orleans, Louisiana and Manhattan, New York. I spend my free time running, reading, perusing archival fashion, and searching for the world’s best negroni. I also have a debonair tuxedo cat, Westley, who's named after "The Princess Bride." ### Author social links [Bluesky]()