Coders lose their DMCA case against GitHub Copilot and Codex
“We decline plaintiffs’ invitation to transform run-of-the-mill copyright-infringement claims into DMCA claims,” Judge Eric Miller wrote for a unanimous Ninth Circuit panel.
The opinion came on Wednesday in Doe v GitHub, number 24-7700. Anonymous programmers who publish open-source code had sued GitHub, Microsoft and OpenAI over Copilot and Codex.
They argued the tools reproduce their code without attribution. That, they said, breached section 1202(b) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
The panel affirmed the dismissal of that claim. The ruling leaves their two breach-of-contract claims running.
Copilot is not a search engine, and that decided it
Section 1202(b) bars intentionally removing or altering copyright management information. That means the author’s name, the copyright notice and the licence terms. In open-source code it sits in a header at the top of the file.
Miller held that removal requires an existing work to remove it from. “One who creates a new work...
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