Copilot's Al programming assistant doesn't steal other people's code, Microsoft, GitHub and OpenAI say

Copilot's Al programming assistant doesn't steal other people's code, Microsoft, GitHub and OpenAI say. The claim lacks two necessary components - damages and cause.

Microsoft, GitHub and OpenAI have filed a motion to dismiss a class-action lawsuit alleging that GitHub's Copilot artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm training infringed copyright on the software code. Representatives for the three companies said the claims in the lawsuit are unenforceable.

In 2021, GitHub launched Copilot, an artificial intelligence tool based on OpenAI technologies - it replaces their variants when writing code, making it easier for programmers. The developers say the algorithm was trained from publicly available material on GitHub, but the tool has raised concerns about copyright infringement.

In November of last year, developer and attorney Matthew Butterick, backed by the law firm of Joseph Savery, filed a lawsuit proposing to be granted class-action status. According to the plaintiff, at the heart of Copilot is "software piracy on an unprecedented scale". Butterick and his team subsequently filed another lawsuit on behalf of two anonymous software developers, also a potentially class action lawsuit, which Microsoft, GitHub and OpenAI are urging to be dismissed.

According to Microsoft and GitHub, the lawsuit is missing two necessary components — damages and a cause of action. OpenAI representatives describe the lawsuit as multiple claims that do not include " infringement of legally protected rights ." " Copilot does not borrow anything from open source code. Rather, Copilot helps developers write code by generating suggestions based on what it has acquired from a body of knowledge derived from publicly available code ," - said in a statement Microsoft and GitHub. The defendants further claim that the plaintiffs are " undermining the tenets of the open source ideology " by seeking " multi-billion-dollar legal protections and ill-gotten gains " for "software that they actively distribute as open source ."

A court hearing at which the claim could be dismissed is scheduled for May. Previously, with the support of the same law firm, members of the US artist community filed a similar lawsuit against the developers of artificial intelligence models Midjourney, Stability AI and DeviantArt - alleging that they used copyrighted images in their training. without permission from their owners.