Recently, the Northern District Court of California made a ruling in a copyright lawsuit that has attracted widespread attention, partially dismissing the claims against GitHub Copilot programming tool and its former underlying technology, OpenAI Codex. This decision may set a precedent for new technology tools that train with copyrighted data.
The lawsuit was filed by the law firm of Joseph Saveri in 2022, with the plaintiff claiming that GitHub and OpenAI allowed Copilot and Codex to copy source code without complying with copyright notices and attribution requirements, thereby infringing on copyrights.
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The court dismissed the plaintiff's claims based on Section 1202(b) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which prohibits the removal of copyright notices. The court ruled that the plaintiff failed to prove that Copilot tends to copy copyrighted code in an identical manner.
The plaintiff cited a study that claimed the likelihood of the system copying training data word-for-word increases as the model size grows. However, Judge Jon S. Tigar pointed out that the study shows that Copilot " seldom emits memorized code in benign cases, and most memorization occurs only when the model is prompted with long code excerpts that are very similar to the training data."
This judgment indicates that copyright claims may face challenges as long as new technology systems do not copy their training materials word-for-word in normal use. The decision may also affect other similar lawsuits, such as the copyright dispute between OpenAI and The New York Times.
While the court dismissed claims of unjust enrichment and unfair competition, it allowed the ongoing claims of violating open-source licensing agreements. The plaintiff argued that Copilot copied code without attribution, violating open-source licensing terms.
Matthew Butterick, a programmer and lawyer involved in the lawsuit, emphasized concerns about potential violations of open-source licenses, as tools like Copilot monetize open-source works without permission.
This ruling has sparked extensive discussions in the industry about the future of emerging technologies, copyright protection, and open-source software development.