Microsoft—Unsealed court filings show Microsoft's own scientist called its AI training data practices 'the largest theft of labor in human history'
Documents unsealed September 17, 2026 in NYT v. OpenAI/Microsoft copyright litigation (SDNY, Judge Sidney Stein) quote Microsoft Director of Applied Science Dr. Brent Hecht internally describing the company's AI training data practices as 'an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions' and 'perhaps the largest theft of labor in human history,' warning a ruling favoring Microsoft would make 'a complete mockery' of fair use. Microsoft's own internal data cited in the filings showed Bing Copilot cut click-through rates to publisher sites by 87-93% for the New York Times, 83-91% for Daily News, and up to 94% for Ziff Davis compared to traditional search. Other internal documents warned the practice had started a 'doom loop' and that 'LLMs are a product that destroys its supply chain.' Microsoft said Hecht's comments reflected one employee's individual view, not a legal analysis.
Scoring Impact
| Topic | Direction | Relevance | Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Creator Compensation | -against | secondary | -0.50 |
| Intellectual Property Ethics | -against | primary | -1.00 |
| Overall incident score = | -0.725 | ||
Score = avg(topic contributions) × significance (high ×1.5) × confidence (0.64)
Evidence (2 signals)
Washington Post: Microsoft exec called AI 'largest theft of labor' in history, court records show
Unsealed court records in NYT v. OpenAI/Microsoft quote Microsoft Director of Applied Science Brent Hecht's internal statements describing AI training practices as an unprecedented theft of labor.
TechCrunch: Microsoft exec called AI scraping the 'largest theft of labor'; unredacted filings reveal 'doom loop' warnings and publisher traffic collapse
Reports on the unsealed filings, including internal Microsoft documents warning of a 'doom loop' and citing Microsoft's own data showing 87-94% publisher click-through declines from Bing Copilot versus traditional search.