GitHub Copilot sued for copying code from developers
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Occurred: November 2022
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Developers sued GitHub, Microsoft and OpenAI for copying their code to train the AI-powered coding assistant GitHub Copilot without proper attribution, permission or compensation.
What happened
What happened
The lawsuit claims that GitHub Copilot was trained on publicly available code and subsequently suggested code snippets that were directly copied from the plaintiffs' repositories.
The developers allege that this practice violates copyright laws and software licensing requirements, as Copilot presents others' code as its own without appropriate credit.
Why it happened
Why it happened
Central to the controversy is GitHub Copilot's training, which used a huge amount of publicly available code to generate suggestions for developers.Β
The plaintiffs argue that this training method results in Copilot reproducing verbatim snippets of their copyrighted code. They also contend that GitHub's filtering system, designed to detect and suppress such matches, is ineffective and allows for the reproduction of copyrighted material.
What it means
What it means
Lawyers are divided on whether Github and OpenAI's use of public repositories can be considered fair use given Copilot draws extensively on code available under many different types of public license, only some of which require attribution for derivative works.
β July 2024. Claims by developers that GitHub Copilot was unlawfully copying their code were mostly dismissed, leaving the engineers with two allegations remaining in their lawsuit.
Operator: Microsoft/GitHub
Developer: Microsoft/GitHub
Country: USA
Sector: Technology
Purpose: Generate code
Technology: Generative AI; Machine learning
Issue: Accountability; Copyright; Transparency
Legal, regulatory π©πΌββοΈ
Legal, regulatory π©πΌββοΈ
Joseph Saveri Law Firm. GitHub and Copilot Intellectual Property Litigation
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Type: Issue
Published: January 2025
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