Many consider Copilot to be primarily an engine for violating open source licenses.
kate downin, an open source lawyer, shared his perspective on the complaint a few days agowhat a few days ago GitHub Copilot received for violating its legal obligations with open source authors and end users.
In short, it explains that GitHub users grant a special license to GitHub, which overrides the original license. However, if this is true, any downloading (uploading) of code over which users do not have 100% copyright control is copyright infringement, as the user would not have the power to grant GitHub this special license.
It would be similar to a user downloading (uploading) a copyrighted movie to YouTube and Google using that as a license to use the movie in an ad, for example.
For those of you who are new to GitHub Copilot, you should know that this is like the AI equivalent of programming, in which two developers work together on a single computer. The idea is that one developer can contribute new ideas or spot problems that the other developer might have missed, even if it requires more hours of work.
In practice, however, Copilot is more of a utility tool that saves time, integrating resources that developers would otherwise have to look elsewhere for. As users enter data into Copilot, the tool suggests code snippets for them to add with the click of a button. This way, they don't have to spend time looking through the API documentation or searching for sample code on specialized sites.
Matthew Butterick has decided to file a lawsuit against GitHub Copilot along with class action attorneys
By training their AI systems on public GitHub repositories (although based on their public statements, perhaps much more), we argue that the defendants violated the legal rights of a large number of creators who posted code or other works under certain code licenses. open on GitHub. . What licences? A set of 11 popular open source licenses that require author name and copyright attribution, including the MIT License, the GPL, and the Apache License. (These are listed in the appendix to the Complaint.)
In addition to violating the requirements for granting these licenses, we assert that Defendants violated:
the GitHub Terms of Service and Privacy Policies;
DMCA § 1202, which prohibits the removal of copyright management information;
California Consumer Privacy Act;
and other laws that give rise to related legal claims.In the coming weeks, we will likely edit this complaint to add more parties and claims.
About the complaint Kate Downin mentions that it is fascinating because the only thing it does not allege is copyright infringement. The complaint explicitly anticipates a fair use defense on this front and attempts to avoid this whole issue primarily by filing a complaint under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, centered on Section 1202, that:
Prohibits removal of copyrighted works from various copyright-related information. The complaint also includes other claims related to:
breach of contract related to open source licenses on individual GitHub repositories (again, not a copyright claim)
unlawful interference with a contractual relationship (by failing to provide Copilot users with the proper license information with which they could comply)
fraud (related to GitHub's alleged lies in their terms of service and privacy policy about how code on GitHub would not be used outside of GitHub)
revocation of substitution under Lanham's law (for allegedly misleading Copilot users into believing output generated by Copilot belonged to Copilot)
unjust enrichment (freely for all of the above)
unfair competition (loosely because of all of the above)
breach of contract related to GitHub's alleged violation of the personal data provisions in its terms of service and privacy policy
violation of the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) in connection with GitHub's alleged violation of the personal data provisions in its Terms of Service
He mentions that the first thing that comes to mind is that most people who have code on GitHub don't bother to officially copyright it at the Copyright Office, which means that under the Copyright Act, although they are copyrighted, they do not have the right to enforce their copyright in court.
Since this is a class action lawsuit, at least with respect to a claim of copyright infringement, the plaintiffs' lawyers would have had difficulties to identify registered copyright claimants and the pool of claimants in the pool would be significantly reduced, probably by around 99%.
However, there are other reasons for not wanting to raise a fair dealing defense. Such litigation is extremely factual, to begin with. It's worth noting that while a business motivated by the financial incentives that accompany class action lawsuits may not want to sue for copyright infringement, that certainly doesn't stop people with other motivations from bringing such action.
Without the copyright claim, any involvement in this lawsuit will certainly not be the cornerstone lawyers will turn to when assessing the legal risks of machine learning (ML). Such litigation is extremely factual, to begin with.
It is worth noting thate although a company motivated by financial incentives Accompanying Class Action Lawsuitss may not want to sue for copyright infringement, that certainly doesn't stop people with other motivations from coming forward with such action.
Without the copyright claim, any involvement in this lawsuit will certainly not be the cornerstone lawyers will turn to when assessing the legal risks of machine learning (ML). Such litigation is extremely factual, to begin with.
It also mentions that there is a part that "seems strange" and is that the complaint seems to misunderstand GitHub's Terms of Service (ToS). The Terms of Service, like all well-written Terms of Service, specifically identifies that "GitHub" includes all of its affiliates (such as Microsoft) and GitHub users grant GitHub the right to use their content to run and improve the "Service." ».
En general, it is not clear what the plaintiffs would gain (the actual group, not the lawyers) by forcing Copilot to display license information for all of its copyrighted suggestions.
Source: https://katedowninglaw.com