“And because the stuff we reported on above was all done through Bing using Dall-E, Microsoft is on the hook, too.”
Our reading:
Because the infringing outputs were generated via Bing using DALL-E, Microsoft also bears copyright liability risk.
Assessment: Supported
What happened
Does the evidence support the cause?
Outcome: Supported
The evidence matches what they said.
Judged on a plain reading. They named no measure, so we used the reading a typical informed reader would take. It is spelled out under “How we judged it”.
Evidence up to . Checked .
Why
Microsoft documented that it supplied DALL-E image generation through Bing. Contemporary Congressional Research Service analysis explained that providers could face liability for infringing outputs, subject to the applicable legal requirements. Reporting about Disney-related Bing images also documented rights-holder concerns. Together, these support the contextual claim that Microsoft's provider role exposed it to copyright risk. They do not establish that Microsoft infringed copyright or owed damages for Marcus's examples.
Caveats
- The conclusion depends on reading “on the hook” as legal exposure.
- Applying general liability principles to Microsoft is an evaluator inference, not a court ruling.
- Actual liability depends on the particular output, protected expression, defenses, and the requirements of the asserted liability theory.
- The Disney report includes broader intellectual-property concerns and relies partly on an anonymous source.
Evidence (3 items)
Supports the claim: Microsoft Bing,
Powered by DALL∙E from our partners at OpenAI, Bing Image Creator allows you to use your own words to create stunning images.
Why it matters: Microsoft identifies Bing Image Creator as a service powered by OpenAI's DALL-E. This establishes the provider relationship underlying the causal claim, although it does not authenticate Marcus's individual generation sessions.
- Publisher
- Microsoft Bing
- Kind of source
- Company disclosure: the company describing itself, not an independent finding
- About events on
- Published
Supports the claim: Congressional Research Service,
Under current doctrines, both the AI user and the AI company could potentially be liable.
Why it matters: The report identifies potential company liability for infringing outputs, including vicarious liability depending on supervision and financial interest. Applying that analysis to Microsoft's documented provider role supports exposure to risk, rather than automatic liability.
- Publisher
- Congressional Research Service
- Kind of source
- Secondary summary
- About events on
- Published
Supports the claim: Financial Times, republished by Ars Technica,
One person familiar with Disney’s approach suggested the media giant had reported its concerns about copyright or intellectual property infringement.
Why it matters: The report connects rights-holder concerns to images supplied through Bing Image Creator before Marcus's post. It corroborates practical exposure, but its anonymous sourcing and mixture of copyright and trademark issues prevent treating it as proof of copyright infringement.
- Publisher
- Financial Times, republished by Ars Technica
- Kind of source
- News report
- About events on
- Published
How we judged it
- Kind of claim
- Causal claim
- Deadline
- None given. We don’t add one.
Conditions
- outputs generated through Bing using DALL-E (their words)
Where we had to interpret
- In the surrounding discussion of further risks, “on the hook” means exposure to copyright claims and potential liability, rather than an established obligation to pay damages.
- Assess whether Microsoft's role in supplying image generation through Bing created such exposure under U.S. copyright law as understood when the post appeared.
- The claim does not require a completed lawsuit against Microsoft over the particular images reproduced in the post.
Right if: Evidence establishes Microsoft's role in supplying DALL-E image generation through Bing and a credible legal route by which supplying infringing outputs could expose the provider to copyright liability.
Wrong if: Controlling law or other authoritative evidence establishes that Microsoft's described role could not expose it to copyright liability, or evidence disproves the relevant supplier relationship.
We wrote this test after the outcome was known.
We found 17 claims in this post. See them all.
Full record
Source and dates
Marcus on AI, Things are about to get a lot worse for Generative AI, paragraph 31.
- Said
- We read the source
- live page, full text, public
- Evidence up to
- Checked
We read this wording on 2026-10-29. The post may have been edited after 2023-12-29.
Where it was said (1)
Said once in the posts we read.
: Marcus on AI, Things are about to get a lot worse for Generative AI
And because the stuff we reported on above was all done through Bing using Dall-E, Microsoft is on the hook, too.
- Where
- paragraph 31
- Published
- 2023-12-29
- We read it
- , live page
- Access
- full text, public
History
Versions
- Current: Supported. Evidence up to 2026-10-28.
What happened to this record
PublishedBy us
Published after both AI reviews and the final check passed.